Who said: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place"

BookBrowse's Favorite Quotes

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place - George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is best known as a playwright but, in addition to more than 60 plays, he was also a music and literary critic and a prolific pamphleteer - writing both brochures and speeches for The Fabian Society, a British intellectual socialist movement. Like his other writing, his plays tend to focus on social issues such as education, marriage, religion, politics and particularly the exploitation of the working class, but wrapped with a light comedy to make them palatable to a wide audience.

He is the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), the latter for his work on the film Pygmalion*, which was adapted from the play of the same name (which many will know better as the musical My Fair Lady). He wanted to refuse the Nobel Prize, but his wife (Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian) persuaded him to accept it as a tribute to Ireland; but he rejected the monetary prize asking that it be used to translate Swedish books into English.

*The Pygmalion myth was popular with Victoria playwrights. According to Ovid's version of the tale, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory, and promptly fell in love with her. At the festival of Venus he made an offering to the goddess and wished that the statue could be made real. Following a visit from Cupid, his wish was granted, and the two were married.

More Quotes

This quote & biography originally ran in an issue of BookBrowse's membership magazine. Full Membership Features & Benefits.

Join BookBrowse

for a year of great reading
about exceptional books!

Find out more


Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: North Woods
    North Woods
    by Daniel Mason
    "History haunts him who does not honor it." This incidental line from Daniel Mason's North Woods ...
  • Book Jacket
    One Puzzling Afternoon
    by Emily Critchley
    While British author Emily Critchley's graceful novel One Puzzling Afternoon is about cognitive ...
  • Book Jacket: A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket: California Golden
    California Golden
    by Melanie Benjamin
    As in her other work, Melanie Benjamin brings her historical novel California Golden to life through...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Lucy by the Sea
by Elizabeth Strout
A poignant, pitch-perfect novel from Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Roaring Days of Zora Lily
    by Noelle Salazar

    A glittering novel of family, love, ambition, and self discovery by the bestselling author of The Flight Girls.

  • Book Jacket

    This Is Salvaged
    by Vauhini Vara

    Stories of uncanny originality from Vauhini Vara, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Who Said...

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

One N U G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.