George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist, literary critic, a socialist spokesman,
and a leading figure in the 20th century theater.  Shaw was a freethinker, a supporter
of women's rights and an advocate of equality of income.  In 1925 he was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Shaw accepted the honor but refused the money.

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Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

      
The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.


A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the one who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he or she be a painter or a ploughman.
  
Happiness and beauty are by-products.  Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty.


The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
   

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.


 Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to this country and to humankind is to bring up a family.

 

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out,
but it catches fire again every time a child is born.
  

  

Life is no brief candle to 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.
 
The worst sin toward our fellow creature is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:  that's the essence of inhumanity.

  

  People are wise in proportion not to their experience but to their capacity for experience.
   

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
 
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.
I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want,
and, if they can't find them, make them.
  

  

We have no more right to consume happiness
without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
 

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
 

The greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes is poverty. 
 

 
Give people health and a course to steer,
and they'll never stop to trouble about whether they're happy or not.
 

The reasonable people adapt themselves to the world;
the unreasonable ones persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves.
 
The person with a toothache thinks everyone happy
whose teeth are sound.   The poverty-stricken person
makes the same mistake about the rich person.
 

    

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them
how they would like to live in a stationary one, and do without change.
    
Progress is impossible without change, and those who
cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
 

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

 

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Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.