The Edmondson Blog

A few thoughts from George Bernard Shaw, the curmudgeon who was considered the greatest English playwright since Shakespeare.

• I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
• No man can be a pure specialist without being, in a strict sense, an idiot.
• Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
• There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have in charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.
• When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
• A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
• We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.
• A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
• The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
• I am a gentleman; I live by robbing the poor.
• The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
• If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.
• The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
• There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
• Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.