from the desk of H. Bowie...

desktop with typewriter

Commonplace Book:

George Bernard Shaw

Brief Bio: Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist

Lived: 1856-1950

For further info: en.wikipedia.org

Quotes:

“My Life Belongs to the Whole Community”

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; 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.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

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. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

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“Progress Depends on the Unreasonable Man”

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

1903 from the play Maxims for Revolutionists

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“I Dream Things That Never Were”

You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’

1921 from the play Back to Methuselah

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