George Bernard Shaw was never short of an opinion when it came to politics. He regarded many politicians as upper class fools who only held their position because of their standing in society. With this attitude, Shaw was always happy to knock politicians down a peg or two with his wit whenever he saw an opportunity arise. Here is a selection of some of our favourite George Bernard Shaw quotes on politics:
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.
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Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.
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Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
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Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.
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Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool. Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool.
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We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.
The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.
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I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
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The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.
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When you vote, you only change the names of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new.
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Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.
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All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
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Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination. Alcohol is a very necessary article… It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
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Whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty begins, not at the age of 21 years but 21 seconds.
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Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.
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If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a footrule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.
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I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny. They have only shifted it to another shoulder.
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An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.
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Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self-interest backed by force.
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Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
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Read about George Bernard Shaw’s life and career
