I know where I’m going I know who’s going with me I know who I love And the devil knows who I’ll marry.
Traditional Irish folk song (Judy Collins) (Ireland quotes and aphorisms)
In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.
John Pentland Mahaffy
Alcohol is a very necessary article… It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
George Bernard Shaw
When the Irishman is found outside of Ireland in another environment, he very often becomes a respected man. The economic and intellectual conditions that prevail in his own country do not permit the development of individuality. No one who has any self-respect stays in Ireland, but flees afar as though from a country that has undergone the visitation of an angered Jove.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?”
Quentin Crisp (1908-1999, British author)
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
George Bernard Shaw
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw
What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say “I know” instead of “I am learning,” and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for skepticism and activity.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
All publicity is good, except an obituary notice.
Brendan F. Behan (1923-1964, Irish writer)
There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.
Brendan F. Behan (1923-1964, Irish writer)
The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Here, the churches seemed to shrink away into eroding corners. They seem to have ceased to be essential parts of American life. They no longer give life. It is the huge buildings of commerce and trade which now align the people to attention. These in their massive manner of steel and stone say, Come unto me all ye who labor, and we will give you work.
Sean O’Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.
Sean O’Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
We sing in a church, why can we not dance there?
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don’t think so much learning becomes a young woman: for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning; nor will it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments; but… I would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice: then, sir, she would have a supercilious knowledge in accounts, and, as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries: this is what I would have a woman know; and I don’t think there is a superstitious article in it.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Those that vow the most are the least sincere.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
When Satan makes impure verses, Allah sends a divine tune to cleanse them.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
Beauty is all very well at first sight, but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead — ahead of myself as well as you.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-lounge.
Patrick Campbell (1913-1980, Irish humorist)
Patrick Campbell (1913-1980, Irish humorist)
When the blind lead the blind, no wonder they both fall into — matrimony.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
And say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
George Fabricius (1678-1707, Irish dramatist)
Observe this, that tho a woman swear, forswear, lie, dissemble, back-bite, be proud, vain, malicious, anything, if she secures the main chance, she’s still virtuous; that’s a maxim.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One’s relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973, Anglo-Irish novelist)
Here we have bishops, priests, and deacons, a Censorship Board, vigilant librarians, confraternities and sodalities, Duce Maria, Legions of Mary, Knights of this Christian order and Knights of that one, all surrounding the sinner’s free will in an embattled circle.
Sean O’Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books nobody reads.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
The drama’s altar isn’t on the stage: it is candle-sticked and flowered in the box office. There is the gold, though there be no frankincense or myrrh; and the gospel for the day always The Play will Run for a Year. The Dove of Inspiration, of the desire for inspiration, has flown away from it; and on it’s roof, now, the commonplace crow caws candidly.
Sean O’Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience — it also marks the time, which is four o clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple.
J. M. Synge (1871-1909, Irish poet, dramatist)
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it, said the Philosopher.
James Stephens (1882-1950, Irish poet, author)
The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take the second must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The military mind is indeed a menace. Old-fashioned futurity that sees only men fighting and dying in smoke and fire; hears nothing more civilized than a cannonade; scents nothing but the stink of battle-wounds and blood.
Sean O’Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
The doctor found, when she was dead, her last disorder mortal.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing — a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I want to be all used up when I die.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
A man does not die of love or his liver or even of old age; he dies of being a man.
Percival Arland Ussher (1899-1980, Irish author, critic)
I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the same.
Iris Murdoch (British novelist, philosopher)
If women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end of the race.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
A woman is a branchy tree and man a singing wind; and from her branches carelessly he takes what he can find.
James Stephens (1882-1950, Irish poet, author)
To be born woman is to know — although they do not speak of it at school — women must labor to be beautiful.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
The poor would never be able to live at all if it were not for the poor.
George Moore (1852-1933, Irish writer)
There’s no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
The greatest evils and the worst of crimes is poverty; our first duty, a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Poverty does not produce unhappiness: It produces degradation.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The seven deadly sins… food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones from Man’s neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
What do I know of man’s destiny? I could tell you more about radishes.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Joy is the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentlemen, he may pronounce as he pleases.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and perishing, as the lightning.
Richard Chevenix Trench (1807-1886, Irish ecclesiastic, archbishop of Dublin)
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852, Irish poet)
Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973, Anglo-Irish novelist)
Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
The chief prerequisite for a escort is to have a flexible conscience and an inflexible politeness.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
From my earliest days I have enjoyed an attractive impediment in my speech. I have never permitted the use of the word “stammer.” I can’t say it myself.
Patrick Campbell (1913-1980, Irish humorist)
Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849, Irish writer and socialite)
You must be fit to give before you can be fit to receive.
James Stephens (1882-1950, Irish poet, author)
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.
John Anster (1789–1867, Irish poet)
Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973, Anglo-Irish novelist)
Birth was the death of him.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Those who know the least obey the best.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Better never than late.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
You know it is not my interest to pay the principal, or my principal to pay the interest.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
So long as one does not despair, so long as one doesn’t look upon life bitterly, things work out fairly well in the end.
George Moore (1852-1933, Irish writer)
In dreams begin responsibility.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Education is not the filling of the pail, but, the lighting of the fire.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men.
Patrick Kavanagh (1905-1967, Irish poet, author)
Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.
James Stephens (1882-1950, Irish poet, author)
I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile and cunning.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
I… chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
A pretty wife is something for the fastidious vanity of a roue to retire upon.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852, Irish poet)
This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
A nation is the same people living in the same place.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine… a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them.
Conor Cruise O’Brien (1917-, Irish historian, critic, and statesman)
I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
One drink is too many for me and a thousand not enough.
Brendan F. Behan (1923-1964, Irish writer)
I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Love (understood as the desire of good for another) is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being unable to become virgin again and not having energy enough to cast itself out again into the ocean of another’s soul.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
George Moore (1852-1933, Irish writer)
Let me go to hell, that’s all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off their bliss.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
How selfhood begins with a walking away, and love is proved in the letting go.
Robert Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972, Irish poet)
Don’t set your wit against a child.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
It is only to the happy that tears are a luxury.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852, Irish poet)
Habit is a great deadener.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
The moment we pass out of our habits we lose all sense of permanency and routine.
George Moore (1852-1933, Irish writer)
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
Patrick Campbell (1913-1980, Irish humorist)
The heart that has truly loved never forgets, but, as truly, loves on to the close.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852, Irish poet)
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Sometimes a noble failure serves the world as faithfully as a distinguished success.
Edward Dowden (1843-1913, Irish critic)
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
Robert Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972, Irish poet)
A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, our stitching and unstinting has been naught.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, playwright.)
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
That old man dies prematurely whose memory records no benefits conferred. They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745, Anglo-Irish satirist)
How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
The bastard! He doesn’t exist!
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
Money swore an oath that nobody who did not love it should ever have it.
Irish Proverb (Sayings of Irish origin)
Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty. Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
I think a child should be allowed to take his father’s or mother’s name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
He who has never hoped can never despair.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I believe I was impatient with unintelligent people from the moment I was born: a tragedy — for I am myself three-parts a fool.
Patrick Campbell (1913-1980, Irish humorist)
Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
George Fabricius (1678-1707, Irish dramatist)
Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst.
George Farquhar (c.1677-1707, Irish playwright)
Ay, ay, the best terms will grow obsolete: damns have had their day.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.
Brian Friel (1929-, Irish playwright, author)
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973, Anglo-Irish novelist)
I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
Brendan F. Behan (1923-1964, Irish writer)
The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973, Anglo-Irish novelist)
When delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover’s apprehension.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816, Anglo-Irish dramatist)
There comes a point in many people’s lives when they can no longer play the role they have chosen for themselves. When that happens, we are like actors finding that someone has changed the play.
Brian Moore (1921-, Irish novelist)
You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951, Irish missionary)
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.
James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish author)
There is nothing so consoling as to find one’s neighbor’s troubles are at least as great as one’s own.
George Moore (1852-1933, Irish writer)
Make sense who may. I switch off.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Irish dramatist, novelist)
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