George Bernard Shaw
17 books by George Bernard Shaw to read free, each with its best passages and lines, and the best quotes from all of them below.
Where to start
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Pygmalion
An arrogant upper-class professor bets a colleague he can transform a simple flower girl into a “Duchess” in just six months.
34,193 words, about 2 hours
Then
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Mrs. Warren’s Profession
A young woman learns a secret about her mother’s past and must decide what it means for her future.
35,333 words, about 2 hours
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Arms and the Man
A humorous examination of human hypocrisy and war’s stupidity in the midst of the Serbo-Bulgarian war.
25,278 words, about 2 hours
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Major Barbara
The story of idealistic Barbara Undershaft, a Major in the Salvation Army, who does not want to be connected to her father’s “tainted” money.
47,870 words, about 3 hours
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Man and Superman
Jack Tanner flees both London and responsibility when he is made guardian of his childhood friend Ann Whitehead.
85,739 words, about 6 hours
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Candida
A clergyman’s beliefs about his respectable household are challenged by a young poet who is in love with his wife.
23,234 words, about 2 hours
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Heartbreak House
Men and women of the English leisured classes gather at a country house on the eve of war to discuss love, life, and the future.
48,231 words, about 3 hours
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Saint Joan
Joan of Arc’s life story is retold, from her early life, to her campaigns, and beyond.
56,639 words, about 4 hours
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Back to Methuselah
Five linked plays explore human longevity and governance.
112,830 words, about 8 hours
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The Apple Cart
An English king challenges his popular prime minister and cabinet.
36,223 words, about 3 hours
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The Doctor’s Dilemma
A doctor must decide which patient is worthy of his newly discovered cure: a talented but amoral artist, or a good-hearted but undistinguished public servant.
61,301 words, about 4 hours
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The Man of Destiny
Napoleon engages in a battle of wits to reclaim some stolen letters.
16,609 words, about 1 hour
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You Never Can Tell
A family recently returned to England navigates a comedy of errors when they accidentally meet their estranged husband and unknown father.
35,206 words, about 2 hours
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Misalliance
On a pleasant summer afternoon, a sudden plane crash followed by a would-be assassin interrupt a family’s conversations about marriage.
32,790 words, about 2 hours
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Fanny’s First Play
A young woman writes a play to shock her father, in which two respectable families deal with their with disreputable children.
26,709 words, about 2 hours
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Getting Married
On the morning of a young couple’s wedding, concerns about what is to come inspire discussions about the institution of marriage.
61,613 words, about 4 hours
George Bernard Shaw quotes
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.
All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we can, and kill as many of the enemy as we can.
The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience.
But the lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book.
Yes: we have the same father—in Heaven.
Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war.
As she contrived to assert herself in all these ways with such force that she was famous throughout western Europe before she was out of her teens (indeed she never got out of them), it is hardly surprising that she was judicially burnt
It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself.
Blank verse is so childishly easy and expeditious (hence, by the way, Shakespeare’s copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within the week what would have cost me a month in prose.
Money talks: money prints: money broadcasts: money reigns
It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity.
He is imaginative without illusions, and creative without religion, loyalty, patriotism or any of the common ideals.
Why shouldn’t you? it’s your business to hurt people.
I was an afterthought?
I hate to see dead people walking about: it is unnatural. And our respectable middle class people are all as dead as mutton.
There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.
German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen.
Sitting at such plays, we do not believe: we make-believe.
I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that yesterday.