Daily Inspiration Quote by George Bernard Shaw

Self-quotation is the sort of small social crime Shaw commits with a wink, daring you to call him on it. On the surface, the line is a dandyish boast: he is so worth hearing that even he can’t resist reruns. But the joke is engineered to do more than flatter the speaker. It exposes the vanity tucked inside “good conversation,” that supposedly democratic exchange where everyone pretends they’re not keeping score.

Shaw’s key move is the culinary metaphor. “Spice” suggests something optional but addictive, a seasoning that makes bland talk palatable. By framing self-citation as flavor rather than ego, he reframes a social faux pas as an aesthetic choice. It’s a neat little forgery: he turns self-regard into craft. The subtext is pure Shaw: if conversation is performance (and it is), then why not use your strongest lines? The audience’s discomfort becomes part of the entertainment, because he’s already named the transgression and made it funny.

Context matters. Shaw is a dramatist and public provocateur, a man who lived by the epigram and the carefully sharpened paradox. His plays and prefaces are full of characters who win by controlling the terms of the debate, not by being “nice.” This quip compresses that worldview into a single act of rhetorical mischief: he claims authority, mocks authority, and still gets the last word. It’s narcissism staged as self-awareness, which is why it lands.