Man and Superman

By George Bernard Shaw

QUOTATION: In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. The Statue, in Man and Superman, act 3.

QUOTATION: Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. “Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule,” Man and Superman (1903).

QUOTATION: The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (1903). John Tanner, in Man and Superman, act 1, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 2, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1971).

QUOTATION: If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. “Maxims for Revolutionists: How to Beat Children,” Man and Superman (1903).

QUOTATION: The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. “Maxims for Revolutionists: Idolatry,” Man and Superman (1903).

QUOTATION: Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. The statue, in Man and Superman, act 3.

QUOTATION: We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Tanner, in Man and Superman, act 1.

QUOTATION: You think that you are Ann’s suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (1903). John Tanner, in Man and Superman, act 2, l. 903, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 2, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1971).

QUOTATION: You said that my manner in that book was not serious enough—that I made people laugh in my most earnest moments. But why should I not? Why should humor and laughter be excommunicated? Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. letter, Feb. 14, 1910, to Count Leo Tolstoy on Man and Superman. Collected Letters 1898-1910, ed. by Dan H. Laurence (1972).

QUOTATION: This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (1903). Man and Superman, epistle dedicatory, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 2, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1971).

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