Verdens vittigste mann

En mann som har sagt: «Jeg siterer ofte meg selv. Det krydrer konversasjonen» vet du har en del humoristiske observasjoner å komme med. Mannen heter George Bernard Shaw, og vi har samlet noen av de vittigste sitatene fra hans liv. Vi har skrevet dem på sitt originalspråk, engelsk (dog, han var irsk), under. Noe annet ville garantert irritert Shaw, og det vil vi ikke.

George Bernard Shaw ble født i Dublin i 1856 og skrev skuespill, var journalist og var en av grunnleggerne til London School of Economics. Han var også sosialist, dog i den versjonen som fantes da han levde (han levde til 1950 - og ble altså 94 år). Han er er den eneste personen noen gang som både har vunnet en Nobel-pris i litteratur og en Oscar for ett verk: Pygmalion.

Hans sitater er ikke bare vittige, de får deg også til å tenke. Så her er et lite utvalg:

• A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
• A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
• A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
• Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life
• Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
• Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
• Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.
• Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
• I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it
• I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people
• If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.
• Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it.
• Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
• No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
• Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
• The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong
• We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
• Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!
• Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Denne saken ble første gang publisert 19/06 2011.