I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

Shaw frames life as a form of social trusteeship: one’s talents and energies are not private property but resources owed to the wider community. The language of being “used up” rejects the ideal of preserving oneself for comfort or status; instead, it celebrates expenditure—work, service, and creative effort—as the means by which life feels most fully lived. The paradox (“the harder I work the more I live”) suggests that vitality is generated through purposeful engagement rather than conserved through rest or self-protection. In a Shavian key, the statement also carries a moral challenge to individualism: a meaningful life is measured by contribution and intensity of use, not by mere longevity.