George Bernard Shaw

Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist (1856–1950)

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Fame81.9
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United Kingdom rank#68
Writers rank#51
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Lived 1856–1950, aged 94United Kingdom

United Kingdom

WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
120 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in United Kingdom
#68
Writers
Era
1856–1950
Aged 94
Known for
Pygmalion
1938

Summary

Updated 2026-08-14

He turned the stage into a platform for ideas that made audiences squirm — then come back for more. Shaw wrote over sixty plays that dissected marriage, class, war, and religion with surgical wit, and spawned an adjective: Shavian, shorthand for argument dressed as entertainment.

Biography

About

Born in Dublin in 1856, Shaw moved to London at twenty and spent years failing as a novelist while teaching himself to think. By the mid-1880s he'd found his voice as a theatre critic and joined the Fabian Society, writing pamphlets for gradual socialism. His first stage success came in 1894 with Arms and the Man; influenced by Ibsen, he used drama as a vehicle for his political and social ideas. Major Barbara, Pygmalion, and Saint Joan followed, earning him the Nobel Prize in 1925. He courted controversy constantly — promoting eugenics, denouncing both sides in the First World War, and by the…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

said1898

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

— Candida, Act I (1898)

George Bernard Shaw

said1898

We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.

— You Never Can Tell, Act I (1898)

George Bernard Shaw

said1898

I had not achieved a success; but I provoked an uproar; and the sensation was so agreeable that I resolved to try again.

— Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, Vol. I, Preface (1898)

George Bernard Shaw

saidSep 1896

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

— Answers to Nine Questions (September 1896), answers to nine questions submitted by Clarence Rook, who had interviewed him in 1895

George Bernard Shaw

said1896

Die Walküre is endured by the average man because it contains four scenes for which he would sit out a Scotch sermon, or even a House of Commons debate.

— Comments after attending the 1896 Bayreuth Festival. Quoted in Carolyn Abbatte, ["Visits to Valhalla: The Ectasy And the Agony", The New

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