Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

FROM THE PAGES OF PYGMALION AND THREE OTHER PLAYS

I am, and have always been, and shall now always be, a revolutionary writer, because our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or malexperienced dupes, our power wielded by cowards and weaklings, and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.

(from Shaw’s preface to Major Barbara, pages 43 — 44)

“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”

(from Major Barbara, page 127)

“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”

(from Major Barbara, page 132)

If you cannot have what you believe in you must believe in what you have.

(from Shaw’s preface to The Doctor’s Dilemma, page 166)

“I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything.”

(from Pygmalion, page 394)

“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”

(from Pygmalion, pages 451 -452)

“The surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know how to handle money is to give him some.”

(from Heartbreak House, page 568)

“His heart is breaking: that is all. It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”

(from Heartbreak House, page 596)