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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)  Shaw was born in Dublin of Protestant Irish stock. His mother was a talented amateur singer; his father was a corn trader. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic.
From 1879-1903, Shaw was a councillor for the London borough of St Pancras, getting practical experience of social problems in local government. All his life he remained interested in questions of social reform.
In 1884, he joined the Fabian Society where he met Sidney Webb and joined him in his attempt to make socialism respectable. Shaw became famous as a socialist agitator, speaking publicly (and for no fee) all over London, once or twice a week for the next 12 years.
He began his literary career as a novelist; as a fervent advocate of the new theatre of Ibsen (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage. His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Shaw's radical rationalism, his utter disregard of conventions, his keen dialectic interest and verbal wit often turn the stage into a forum of ideas. He wrote lengthy stage directions and character descriptions, more in the style of a novel than a play, as they were read - and admired - but deemed unsuitable for stage performance. Only in the Twenties they began to be accepted and appreciated by the public.
It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavour. In the plays of his later period discussion sometimes drowns the drama, in Back to Methuselah (1921), although in the same period he worked on his masterpiece Saint Joan (1923), in which he rewrites the well-known story of the French maiden and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present.
Other important plays by Shaw are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a historical play filled with allusions to modern times, and Androcles and the Lion (1912), in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era. In Major Barbara (1905), one of Shaw's most successful «discussion» plays, the audience's attention is held by the power of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political activity, not as an individual. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy the humour of which is directed at the medical profession. Candida (1898), with social attitudes toward sex relations as objects of his satire, and Pygmalion (1912), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Shaw accepted the honour but refused the money.
Shaw's complete works appeared in thirty-six volumes between 1930 and 1950, the year of his death. He died at the age of 94, whilst pruning an apple tree.
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cariad yw goramcangyfrif y gwahaniaethau rhwng y naill wraig a’r llall
diau fy mod yn wallgof; ond os nad wyf, ni ddylai\'r lleill fod yn rhydd ychwaith
gan amlaf, nid rhywbeth iddyn nhw yw\'r pethau y mae ar bobl eisiau gwybod amdanynt
golyga rhyddid gyfrifoldeb. Dyna paham y bydd y rhan fwyaf o bobl yn arswydo rhagddo
gwladgarwch yw eich argyhoeddiad fod y wlad hon yn well na phob un arall, am i chi gael eich geni ynddi
mae democratiaeth yn drefn sy\'n gwarantu na fydd y llywodraeth a gawn yn well na\'n haeddiant
mae dyn dysgedig yn ddiogyn sy\'n lladd amser yn astudio
Mae Lloegr ac America yn ddwy wlad wedi eu rhannu gan iaith gyffredin
mae pob newid yn ein cyfreithiau yn mynd ag arian allan o boced rhywun ac i mewn i boced rhywun arall
mae\'n beryglus bod yn ddiffuant, os nad ydych hefyd yn ddwl
mae\'r gallu i sylwi\'n graff, fel arfer, yn cael ei alw\'n syniciaeth gan y rhai nad yw ganddynt
mewn democratiaeth ceir ethol gan y nifer mawr di-glem yn lle penodi gan yr ychydig llygredig
nid oes cariad purach na chariad at fwyd
nid oes cyfrinachau a gedwir yn well na\'r rhai y bydd pawb yn eu dyfalu
nid oes gennym fwy o hawl i afradu hapusrwydd heb ei gynhyrchu nac i afradu cyfoeth heb ei gynhyrchu
nid oes neb sydd yn wir feistr ar ei iaith ei hun byth yn llwyr feistroli iaith arall
nid yw\'r ddadl bod credadun yn hapusach nag amheuwr yn dal mwy o ddŵr na dweud bod dyn meddw\'n hapusach nag un sobr
paid â cheisio byw am byth; lwyddi di ddim
paid â gwneud i eraill fel y mynnet iddyn nhw ei wneud i ti. Efallai nad yr un chwaeth sydd ganddyn nhw
paid ag aros am y cyfle iawn: crea fe
pan fo dau o dan ddylanwad y nwydau mwyaf treisiol, mwyaf gwallgof, a mwyaf diflannol, mae gofyn iddynt dyngu y gwnânt aros yn y cyflwr cynhyrfus, annormal a blinderus hwnnw, yn barhaol, hyd onis gwahano angau
pan fydd dyn am ladd teigr, dywedir mai sbort ydyw; pan fydd teigr am ei ladd ef, dywedir mai ffyrnigrwydd ydyw
po fwyaf o bethau y bydd ar ddyn gywilydd ohonynt, mwyaf parchus ydyw
y garwriaeth ddelfrydol yw un sy\'n mynd rhagddi yn gyfan gwbl drwy\'r post
yn hytrach na diddymu\'r cyfoethogion, rhaid inni ddiddymu\'r tlodion
yr unig adeg y torrwyd ar draws fy addysg oedd pan oeddwn yn yr ysgol
\'dwy\' i byth yn disgwyl i filwr feddwl
’Roedd Hegel yn llygad ei le pan ddywedodd ein bod yn dysgu gan hanes na all dyn byth ddysgu dim gan hanes
’rydych chi\'n mynd i adael i ofn tlodi reoli eich bywyd, a\'ch gwobr fydd bwyta, ond nid byw