The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at… something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly. Stuff like that.

About George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman...

More quotations from George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

—George Bernard Shaw

music hell amateurs

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

—George Bernard Shaw

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

—George Bernard Shaw

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw

poverty government wealth redistribution

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

—George Bernard Shaw

power ignorance democracy corruption incompetence

More quotations tagged with “ability”

Be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved or untrained to stand the test.

—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

ability

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

—Cicero

virtue education glory ability

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

—Baltasar Gracián

ability

The less their ability, the more their conceit.

—Ahad Ha'am

ability

I do the very best I know how-the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

—Abraham Lincoln

ability

History

11 Jul 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at ... something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly. Stuff like that.