[Book Sip] The Sentences of the First Author to Win Both the Nobel Prize and the Academy Award

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. Here, we introduce meaningful sentences excerpted from books.

George Bernard Shaw (1856?1950) was the first person to receive both the Nobel Prize and an Academy Award. Until singer Bob Dylan (who won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2001) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, Shaw was the only person to have won both awards.

Bernard Shaw was born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Influenced by his mother, who was a vocalist, he was exposed to various arts such as music, opera, and painting from a young age. After five novels he wrote between 1879 and 1883 were all rejected for publication, he began writing plays. At the age of 36, in 1892, his first play, Widower's Houses, premiered in London, and he wrote over 60 plays throughout his life.

Passing through the Romantic period, when sentimental melodramas were popular, the Victorian era in which Bernard Shaw was active dealt with various social issues in literature. Shaw also wrote works addressing contemporary economic, political, social, and religious issues. He is credited with establishing and reviving British realistic modern drama. Shaw was greatly influenced by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and even published a book analyzing Ibsen's plays titled The Quintessence of Ibsenism.

Before becoming a playwright, Shaw was active as a critic in music, art, and theater across various media during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1882, after attending a lecture by American political economist Henry George and reading his book Progress and Poverty, Shaw began to take an interest in economic and social issues. In 1883, he became engrossed in Marx's Capital, and in 1884, he joined the Fabian Society, which advocated gradual socialism. He also engaged in political activities as a councilor in St Pancras, London. Shaw stirred controversy by praising figures such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.

Shaw received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1939 for the film Pygmalion. Pygmalion is based on the Greek myth of Pygmalion and tells the story of Higgins, a phonetics professor from London's upper class, who corrects the rough speech of Eliza, a flower girl, and introduces her to high society. It was adapted into the musical My Fair Lady in 1956, a film starring Audrey Hepburn in 1964, and served as the inspiration for the 1990 film Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts.

Shaw adhered to a strict vegetarian diet from the age of 25 in 1881 and lived until he was 94.

“Sentences of Bernard Shaw” reflects on his life through his words and dialogues from his works.

[Book Sip] The Sentences of the First Author to Win Both the Nobel Prize and the Academy Award

My life belongs to the entire community, so I consider it a privilege to do whatever I can for the community while I live. I want to use up all of myself before I die because the harder I work, the more fully I can live. I enjoy life itself. To me, life is not a 'briefly burning candle.' Life is like a shining torch I hold in my hand right now. I want it to burn as brightly as possible before passing it on to future generations (p. 25).

I am not at all a cynical person. If a 'cynic' means someone who does not believe in the innate goodness of humans. Nor am I a pessimist. If a 'pessimist' means someone who has lost hope in human virtue or the value of life (p. 33).

My one special goal is to neglect warm feelings because they take care of themselves. What interests me is the kind of person who can be kind amidst coldness. Anyone can be kind when sentimental (p. 33).

Americans like me very much and will continue to do so until I say something good about them (p. 47).

The task of my life was not something that could be accomplished in Dublin based on experiences limited to Ireland. Just as my father had to go to the grain exchange, I had to go to London. London was the literary center of English and the artistic and cultural literary center that the kingdom of English (I wanted to be its king) could offer. Now, see me in London, caught in an ambiguous situation. I was a foreigner, that is, Irish. At that time, Irish people without British university education were considered the most unfamiliar foreigners among foreigners. As you will soon see, I was not ignorant. But what I knew was something British university graduates did not know, and what they knew was something I did not know or believe. I was a country bumpkin and a person with a strong sense of self. Therefore, for me to be accepted or tolerated in London society, I had to change the spirit of London (pp. 56?57).

What I say today will be talked about by everyone tomorrow. They will not remember who implanted it in their minds, but that is natural. I do not know who implants such things in my mind either. That is what the 'spirit of the age (Zeitgeist)' is (p. 68).

What does it mean to teach how to write a guaranteed hit play? I will continue writing as I have for the next ten years. Then, perhaps a day will come when I roll in a field of gold thanks to dramatically changed audiences (p. 79).

The average lifespan of a meat eater is 63 years. I am about to turn 85 but work more vigorously than ever. I have already lived enough and am now preparing to die. But I cannot die even if I want to. I could die immediately if I ate a piece of beefsteak, but I cannot swallow it. What I fear is living forever. This is the only drawback of vegetarianism (p. 90).

There is a constant war between those who try to gain something from the world and those who want to make the world a better place for everyone (p. 118).

Power does not corrupt humans. But when fools gain power, they corrupt power (p. 133).

The secret to living a happy life is doing what you love. Then you will be so busy that you will have no time to think about whether you are happy or not (p. 157).

Capitalism has destroyed belief in all effective forces other than self-interest backed by power (p. 177).

Peace is better than war, but maintaining peace is much harder than waging war (Preface to Widower's Houses, p. 185).