Bernard Shaw

“ HIGGINS. Well, of course. That’s just how I feel. And how Pickering feels. Eliza: you’re a fool.
LIZA. That’s not a proper answer to give me [she sinks on the chair at the writing-table in tears] .
HIGGINS. It’s all you’ll get until you stop being a common idiot. If you’re going to be a lady, you’ll have to give up feeling neglected if the men you know don’t spend half their time snivelling over you and the other half giving you black eyes. If you can’t stand the coldness of my sort of life, and the strain of it, go back to the gutter. Work til you are more a brute than a human being ”

“ Ask his slave, Britannus: he has been just as good to him. Nay, ask his very horse! His kindness is not for anything in me: it is in his own nature.
POTHINUS. But how can you be sure that he does not love you as men love women?
CLEOPATRA. Because I cannot make him jealous. I have tried.
POTHINUS. Hm! Perhaps I should have asked, then, do you love him?
CLEOPATRA. Can one love a god? Besides, I love another Roman: one whom I saw long before Caesar—no god, but a man—one who can love and hate—one whom I can hurt and who would hurt me. ”

“ BRASSBOUND. Ah; but I'm not an aristocrat, you see. And like most poor men, I'm proud. I don't like being patronized.
LADY CICELY. What is the use of saying that? In my world, which is now your world—OUR world—getting patronage is the whole art of life. A man can't have a career without it.
BRASSBOUND. In my world a man can navigate a ship and get his living by it.
LADY CICELY. Oh, I see you're one of the Idealists—the Impossibilists! We have them, too, occasionally, in our world. There's only one thing to be done with them. ”

“ McCOMAS. Well, well: "True hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."
WAITER. That depends a good deal on one's station in life, sir. If you were a waiter, sir, you'd find that simple faith would leave you just as short as Norman blood. I find it best to spell myself B. double-O.N., and to keep my wits pretty sharp about me. But I'm taking up your time, sir. You'll excuse me, sir: your own fault for being so affable, sir. I'll tell the ladies you're here, sir. (He goes out into the garden through the window.)
McCOMAS. Crampton: I can depend on you, can't I? ”

“ No one ever considers me.”
“Oh, I like to hear you talk,” cried Jane ironically. “You are considered a great deal more than is good for you; and the more you are considered the more you want to be considered.”
“As if,” declaimed Agatha theatrically, “increase of appetite did grow by what it fed on. Shakespeare!”
“Bother Shakespeare,” said Jane, impetuously, “—old fool that expects credit for saying things that everybody knows! But if you complain of not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me, whom everybody sets down as a fool? ”

“ CUSINS. Barbara won't stand that. You will have to choose between your religion and Barbara.
UNDERSHAFT. So will you, my friend. She will find out that that drum of yours is hollow.
CUSINS. Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. ”

“ ADAM. Liar: you denied just now that it called on you to pay for Abel's life with your own.
CAIN. The Voice does not speak to me as it does to you. I am a man: you are only a grown-up child. One does not speak to a child as to a man. And a man does not listen and tremble in silence. He replies: he makes the Voice respect him: in the end he dictates what the Voice shall say.
ADAM. May your tongue be accurst for such blasphemy!
EVE. Keep a guard on your own tongue; and do not curse my son. It was Lilith who did wrong when she shared the labor of creation so unequally between man and wife. ”

“ ELLIE. I know my strength now, Hesione.
MANGAN. Brazen, I call you. Brazen.
MRS HUSHABYE. Tut, tut, Alfred: don't be rude. Don't you feel how lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven? Aren't you happy, you and Hector? Open your eyes: Addy and Ellie look beautiful enough to please the most fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care in the world. We women have managed all that for you. Why in the name of common sense do you go on as if you were two miserable wretches?
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I tell you happiness is no good. You can be happy when you are only half alive. ”

“ GILBEY. My Bobby in Wormwood Scrubbs!
KNOX. Margaret in Holloway!
GILBEY. And now my footman tells me his brother's a duke!
KNOX. | No! | MRS KNOX. | Whats that?
GILBEY. Just before he let you in. A duke! Here has everything been respectable from the beginning of the world, as you may say, to the present day; and all of a sudden everything is turned upside down.
MRS KNOX. It's like in the book of Revelations. But I do say that unless people have happiness within themselves, all the earthquakes, all the floods, and all the prisons in the world cant make them really happy. ”

“ Marchbanks?
BURGESS (with pompous severity) . Mr. Morchbanks is a gentleman and knows his place, which is more than some people do.
PROSERPINE (fretfully) . It's well you and I are not ladies and gentlemen: I'd talk to you pretty straight if Mr. Marchbanks wasn't here. (She pulls the letter out of the machine so crossly that it tears.) There, now I've spoiled this letter—have to be done all over again. Oh, I can't contain myself—silly old fathead!
BURGESS (rising, breathless with indignation) . Ho! I'm a silly ole fathead, am I? Ho, indeed (gasping) . Hall right, my gurl! Hall right. ”

“ Leith Fairfax, and her like. If you love me, you must know that you are committing a crime against nature in living as you are with a man who is as far removed from you in every human emotion as his workshop is from heaven. You have striven to do your duty by him in vain. He is none the happier: we are unutterably the more miserable. Let us try a new life. I have lived in society here all my days, and have found its atmosphere most worthless, most selfish, most impure. I want to be free—to shake the dust of London off my feet, and enter on a life made holy by love. ”

“ ANDROCLES.
Just keep thinking how cruelly you might hurt the poor gladiators.
FERROVIUS.
It does not hurt a man to kill him.
LAVINIA.
Nothing but faith can save you.
FERROVIUS.
Faith! Which faith? There are two faiths. There is our faith. And there is the warrior’s faith, the faith in fighting, the faith that sees God in the sword. How if that faith should overwhelm me?
LAVINIA.
You will find your real faith in the hour of trial.
FERROVIUS.
That is what I fear. I know that I am a fighter. How can I feel sure that I am a Christian? ”

“ BLANCO. Yes; but whats come of it all? Am I a real bad man? a man of game and grit? a man that does what he likes and goes over or through other people to his own gain? or am I a snivelling cry-baby that let a horse his life depended on be took from him by a woman, and then sat on the grass looking at the rainbow and let himself be took like a hare in a trap by Strapper Kemp: a lad whose back I or any grown man here could break against his knee? I’m a rottener fraud and failure than the Elder here. ”

“ JENNIFER [gently] Pray, doctor, from what?
RIDGEON. From making a terrible discovery. From having your life laid waste.
JENNIFER. How?
RIDGEON. No matter. I have saved you. I have been the best friend you ever had. You are happy. You are well. His works are an imperishable joy and pride for you.
JENNIFER. And you think that is your doing. Oh doctor, doctor! Sir Patrick is right: you do think you are a little god. How can you be so silly? You did not paint those pictures which are my imperishable joy and pride: you did not speak the words that will always be heavenly music in my ears. ”

“ HOTCHKISS. You are in it already. Marriage is a trap. You are married. Any man who has the power to spoil your marriage has the power to spoil your life. I have that power over you. MRS GEORGE [desperate] You mean it? HOTCHKISS. I do. MRS GEORGE [resolutely] Well, spoil my marriage and be— HOTCHKISS [springing up] Polly! MRS GEORGE. Sooner than be your slave I'd face any unhappiness. HOTCHKISS. What! Even for George? MRS GEORGE. There must be honor between me and George, happiness or no happiness. Do your worst. HOTCHKISS [admiring her] Are you really game, Polly? ”

“ ANDERSON.
(shocked) . Judith!
JUDITH.
I am doing my duty. I am clinging to my duty. My duty is to get you away, to save you, to leave him to his fate. (Essie utters a cry of distress and sinks on the chair at the fire, sobbing silently.) My instinct is the same as hers—to save him above all things, though it would be so much better for him to die! so much greater! But I know you will take your own way as he took it. I have no power. (She sits down sullenly on the railed seat.) I’m only a woman: I can do nothing but sit here and suffer. ”

“ Would you have come for the despatches?
LADY (overcome by the imagined horror) . Don't ask me. I must have come.
NAPOLEON. Why?
LADY. Because I must. Because there would have been no other way.
NAPOLEON (with conviction) . Because you would have wanted my letter enough to bear your fear. There is only one universal passion: fear. Of all the thousand qualities a man may have, the only one you will find as certainly in the youngest drummer boy in my army as in me, is fear. It is fear that makes men fight: it is indifference that makes them run away: fear is the mainspring of war. Fear! ”

“ CHARTERIS. You mean I don't care a bit less for one woman than another.
SYLVIA. That makes it worse. But what I mean is that you never bother about their being only women: you talk to them just as you do to me or any other fellow. That's the secret of your success. You can't think how sick they get of being treated with the respect due to their sex.
CHARTERIS. Ah, if Julia only had your wisdom, Craven! (He gets off the table with a sigh and perches himself reflectively on the stepladder.)
SYLVIA. She can't take things easy, can she, old man? ”

“ Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a bloodsucker, a hypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to show us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men. ”

“ VIVIE. Mr Praed: once for all, there is no beauty and no romance in life for me. Life is what it is; and I am prepared to take it as it is.
PRAED [enthusiastically] You will not say that if you come with me to Verona and on to Venice. You will cry with delight at living in such a beautiful world.
FRANK. This is most eloquent, Praddy. Keep it up.
PRAED. Oh, I assure you I have cried—I shall cry again, I hope—at fifty! At your age, Miss Warren, you would not need to go so far as Verona. Your spirits would absolutely fly up at the mere sight of Ostend. ”

“ Had you a friend in the college, except half-a-dozen toadies, until I came? And now, because I have sometimes, for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear malice against me, and say that you don’t care whether we part friends or not!”
“I didn’t say so.”
“Oh, Gertrude, you know you did,” said Jane.
“You seem to think that I have no conscience,” said Gertrude querulously.
“I wish you hadn’t,” said Agatha. “Look at me! I have no conscience, and see how much pleasanter I am!”
“You care for no one but yourself,” said Gertrude. “You never think that other people have feelings too. ”

“ CLEOPATRA. And you no longer believe that I long for your departure for Rome?
CAESAR. I no longer believe anything. My brains are asleep. Besides, who knows whether I shall return to Rome?
RUFIO (alarmed) . How? Eh? What?
CAESAR. What has Rome to shew me that I have not seen already? One year of Rome is like another, except that I grow older, whilst the crowd in the Appian Way is always the same age.
APOLLODORUS. It is no better here in Egypt. The old men, when they are tired of life, say “We have seen everything except the source of the Nile.” ”

“ I have moments only.
SPINTHO.
You’re talking nonsense, woman. I tell you, martyrdom pays all scores.
ANDROCLES.
Well, let us hope so, brother, for your sake. You’ve had a gay time, haven’t you? with your raids on the temples. I can’t help thinking that heaven will be very dull for a man of your temperament. (Spintho snarls) . Don’t be angry: I say it only to console you in case you should die in your bed tonight in the natural way. There’s a lot of plague about.
SPINTHO.
(rising and running about in abject terror) I never thought of that. O Lord, spare me to be martyred. ”

“ SIR HOWARD. Cicely: you are talking great nonsense and you know it. These people have no laws to restrain them, which means, in plain English, that they are habitual thieves and murderers.
RANKIN. Nay, nay: not exactly that.
LADY CICELY (indignantly) . Of course not. You always think, Howard, that nothing prevents people killing each other but the fear of your hanging them for it. But what nonsense that is! And how wicked! If these people weren't here for some good purpose, they wouldn't have been made, would they, Mr. Rankin?
RANKIN. That is a point, certainly, Leddy Ceecily. ”

“ BARBARA. Father: do you love nobody?
UNDERSHAFT. I love my best friend.
LADY BRITOMART. And who is that, pray?
UNDERSHAFT. My bravest enemy. That is the man who keeps me up to the mark.
CUSINS. You know, the creature is really a sort of poet in his way. Suppose he is a great man, after all!
UNDERSHAFT. Suppose you stop talking and make up your mind, my young friend.
CUSINS. But you are driving me against my nature. I hate war.
UNDERSHAFT. Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. Dare you make war on war? Here are the means: my friend Mr Lomax is sitting on them. ”

“ Lind after a pause, reddening.
“This is a very painful matter,” said Douglas at last. “As a man of the world, Mr. Lind, you must be aware that I am not bound to your daughter in any way.”
“I am not speaking to you as a man of the world. I am speaking as a father, and as a gentleman.”
“Doubtless your position as a father is an unfortunate one. I can sympathize with your feelings. But as a gentleman——”
“Think of what you are going to say, Sholto. If you speak as a gentleman, you can have only one answer. If you have any other, you will speak as a scoundrel.” ”

“ Bohun, you don't think this match an unwise one?
BOHUN. Yes, I do: all matches are unwise. It's unwise to be born; it's unwise to be married; it's unwise to live; and it's unwise to die.
WAITER (insinuating himself between Crampton and Valentine) . Then, if I may respectfully put in a word in, sir, so much the worse for wisdom! (To Valentine, benignly.) Cheer up, sir, cheer up: every man is frightened of marriage when it comes to the point; but it often turns out very comfortable, very enjoyable and happy indeed, sir—from time to time. ”

“ HIGGINS. I don’t want to, Eliza. Do you?
LIZA. Not me. I don’t want never to see him again, I don’t. He’s a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at his trade.
PICKERING. What is his trade, Eliza?
LIZA. Talking money out of other people’s pockets into his own. His proper trade’s a navvy; and he works at it sometimes too—for exercise—and earns good money at it. Ain’t you going to call me Miss Doolittle any more?
PICKERING. I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. ”

“ What's up, Charteris? Julia been making love to you?
CHARTERIS (speaking to her over his shoulder) . No. Blowing me up for making love to Grace.
SYLVIA. Serve you right. You are an awful devil for philandering.
CHARTERIS (calmly) . Do you consider it good club form to talk that way to a man who might nearly be your father?
SYLVIA (knowingly) . Oh, I know you, my lad.
CHARTERIS. Then you know that I never pay any special attention to any woman.
SYLVIA (thoughtfully) . Do you know, Leonard, I really believe you. I don't think you care a bit more for one woman than for another. ”

“ THE DEVIL. Precisely. Well, he never sings for us now.
DON JUAN. Do you complain of that? Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?
THE DEVIL. You dare blaspheme against the sublimest of the arts!
DON JUAN. [with cold disgust] You talk like a hysterical woman fawning on a fiddler.
THE DEVIL. I am not angry. I merely pity you. You have no soul; and you are unconscious of all that you lose. Now you, Senor Commander, are a born musician. How well you sing! Mozart would be delighted if he were still here ”

“ Is Cleopatra then indeed a Queen, and no longer Caesar’s prisoner and slave?
CLEOPATRA. Pothinus: we are all Caesar’s slaves—all we in this land of Egypt—whether we will or no. And she who is wise enough to know this will reign when Caesar departs.
POTHINUS. You harp on Caesar’s departure.
CLEOPATRA. What if I do?
POTHINUS. Does he not love you?
CLEOPATRA. Love me! Pothinus: Caesar loves no one. Who are those we love? Only those whom we do not hate: all people are strangers and enemies to us except those we love. But it is not so with Caesar. ”

“ VIVIE. Wait a moment: I’ve not done. Tell me why you continue your business now that you are independent of it. Your sister, you told me, has left all that behind her. Why don’t you do the same?
MRS WARREN. Oh, it’s all very easy for Liz: she likes good society, and has the air of being a lady. Imagine me in a cathedral town! Why, the very rooks in the trees would find me out even if I could stand the dulness of it. I must have work and excitement, or I should go melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me: I’m fit for it and not for anything else. ”

“ Do you remember last Sunday when we discussed that bitter saying that women who have sacrificed their feelings to the laws of society secretly know that they have been fools for their pains? He did not deny it. You could give no good reason for disbelieving it. You know it to be true; and I am only striving to save you from that vain regret. You have shewn that you can obey the world with grace and dignity when the world is right. Shew now that you can defy it fearlessly when it is tyrannical. Trust your heart, Marian—my darling Marian: trust your heart—and mine. ”

“ UNDERSHAFT. The son of a foundling! nonsense!
LADY BRITOMART. My son, Andrew! And even you may have good blood in your veins for all you know.
UNDERSHAFT. True. Probably I have. That is another argument in favor of a foundling.
LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: don't be aggravating. And don't be wicked. At present you are both.
UNDERSHAFT. This conversation is part of the Undershaft tradition, Biddy. Every Undershaft's wife has treated him to it ever since the house was founded. It is mere waste of breath. If the tradition be ever broken it will be for an abler man than Stephen. ”