George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W.S.C.:
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.
W.S.C. to G.B.S.:
Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
(Version given in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill's Wit by Kay Halle, 1966)
• Apocryphal, from 1946. See discussion at Winston Churchill#Misattributed, and detailed discussion at "Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One", Garson O'Toole, Quote Investigator, (March 25, 2012)
“

George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W.S.C.:
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.
W.S.C. to G.B.S.:
Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.

— George Bernard Shaw

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W.S.C.:
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.
W.S.C. to G.B.S.:
Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one." in the context of "(Version given in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill's Wit by Kay Halle, 1966)
• Apocryphal, from 1946. See discussion at Winston Churchill#Misattributed, and detailed discussion at "Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One", Garson O'Toole, Quote Investigator, (March 25, 2012)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "George Bernard Shaw" (Misattributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#George Bernard Shaw#gbsimpossible#performance#reserving#premiere#friendif#secondif#bernard#tickets#present#george#onewsc
George Bernard Shaw

About George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist with a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory. He wrote more than sixty plays, including such works as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.