George Bernard Shaw Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by George Bernard Shaw with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
Source identified1
Image design Midnight
Read & copy
“A gentleman has no right to hurt a woman under any circumstances.”
Meaning & context
Sergius recognizes that his claim to gentlemanly honor is incompatible with having physically hurt Louka, even though the scene also exposes his unstable chivalric self-image.
Source details
Arms and the Man, Act II, Project Gutenberg #3618. Sergius says “A gentleman has no right to hurt a woman under any circumstances” while apologizing after gripping Louka hard enough to bruise her; Louka immediately challenges the adequacy of his apology. The line is fictional dramatic dialogue that exposes contradictions in Sergius’s chivalric self-image rather than a complete legal or relationship rule.
Source identified2
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Meaning & context
Shaw uses paradox to argue that social change requires people who refuse to accept existing conditions as final, even when ordinary prudence recommends accommodation.
Source details
‘Maxims for Revolutionists,’ under the heading ‘REASON,’ appended to Man and Superman and represented by Project Gutenberg #26107. Shaw contrasts the ‘reasonable’ man who adapts to the world with the ‘unreasonable’ man who tries to adapt the world to himself, then gives the deliberately provocative conclusion that progress depends on the latter. It is epigrammatic polemic rather than an empirical rule that unreasonable conduct reliably produces progress.
Source identified3
Image design Golden Hour
Read & copy
“the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
Meaning & context
Eliza argues that social status is reinforced by how other people treat her, not merely by clothes, accent or learned manners.
Source details
Pygmalion, Act V, Project Gutenberg #3825. Eliza tells Pickering that the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated, contrasting Pickering’s respect with Higgins’s treatment of her. The line remains dramatic dialogue about class, dignity and social recognition rather than a universal sociological formula.