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Quotes by Irish Authors
"I can't be afraid of someone whose human side I see and know."
"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds."
"Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven."
"Ignorance, as they say, is usually fatal, but sometimes it can be bliss."
"I asked her to look at me and after a few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low) Let me in."
"To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture."
"His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices."
"Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for christmas morning.Time can't be given.But it can be shared."
"My doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven [o'clock]. It makes me talk in my sleep."
"What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man."
"The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize."
"Artemis looked at Holly and felt a tremendous affection for her... he could properly appreciate how fierce and beautiful his best friend was...She is truly magical, thought Artemis. Perhaps her qualities are more obvious to me now that I have decided to sacrifice myself."
"An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill."
"Above Constance's desk were nude photographs of women in 1930s France, draped in provocative poses. She had put them there for Bob's viewing pleasure and in return he had placed African art of naked men above his desk for her."
"My intention was, only, ever to help you see the light shining brightly in front, and inside, of you."
"He hasn't an enemy in the world and none of his friends like him."
"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them."
"Sometimes we have absolutely no idea where we are, we need the smallest clue to show us where to begin."
"Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying."
"Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know."
"CHARTERIS [unfolding his arms in terror] No, please. Dont. As a philosopher, it's my business to tell other people the truth; but it's not their business to tell it to me. I dont like it: it hurts."
"Art, like Nature, has her monsters."
"Respect, wealth, property, friendship, even love. Did I expect to simply fall over each of them as I strolled aimlessly through the years? Was I expecting my whole life to be some form of lucky accident?"
"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror."
"Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes."
"The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound.The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man."
"Our laws make law impossible our liberties destroy all freedom our property is organized robbery our morality an impudent hypocrisy our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes our power wielded by cowards and weaklings and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons."
"People submit tooeasily to change from others. And yet, for some reason, wheneverthey consider changing themselves, the focus is always on what theyare giving up, never what they are about to gain."
"The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it."
"And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still very young."
"The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation."
"Life's kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is just a blur. But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. The painting could be of the sea, the sky, people,buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was."
"If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman he may pronounce as he pleases."
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
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