H. W. Shaw Quotes

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

HIGGINS. Have you no morals, man?DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.

The problem with communication…is the illusion that is has been accomplished.

HIGGINS [aggrieved] Do you mean that my language is improper?MRS HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper - say on a canal barge...

The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.

Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation

Youth is wasted on the young.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

The most distinguished persons become more revolutionary as they grow older.

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

[Man] progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.

How we lavish our money and worship on Shakespeare without in the least knowing why!

You think, because you have a purpose, Nature must have one. You might as well expect it to have fingers and toes because you do.

It is easy-terribly easy-to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to to break a man's spirit is Devil's work.

My dear: in this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

Loyalty in a critic is corruption.

Some donkeys have amazing luck.

A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

Well, I've known over thirty men who've found out how to cure consumption. Why do people go on dying of it, Colly? Devilment I suppose!

The solid earth sways like the treacherous sea beneath the feet of men and spirits alike when the innocent are slain in the name of law, and their wrongs are undone by slandering the pure of heart.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

My opportunities were still there nay they multiplied tenfold but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.

Without art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

Peace is not only better than war but infinitely more arduous.

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

All professions are a conspiracy against the country.

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one and do without change.

Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Self-denial is not a virtue it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

She had lost the art of conversation but not unfortunately the power of speech.

You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.

You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard but by attacking and getting well-hammered yourself.

As long as I have a want I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

You can lose a man like that by your own death but not by his.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

I am only a beer teetotaller not a champagne teetotaller.