Quotes by Irish/Ireland authors (page 17)

"A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation"

"A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors"

Edmund Burke, Statesman

"A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman"

Edmund Burke, Statesman

"Words are all we have"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"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, Playwright

"Poets are the sense, philosophers the intelligence of humanity"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"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, Playwright

"It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"If you do not love me I shall not be loved If I do not love you I shall not love"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"If I had the use of my body, I would throw it out the window"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Habit is a great deadener"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Do we mean love, when we say love?"

Samuel Beckett, Playwright

"Birth was the death of him"

Samuel Beckett, 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, Novelist

"Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Ireland sober is Ireland stiff"

James Joyce, Novelist

"If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European"

James Joyce, Novelist

"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality"

James Joyce, Novelist

"I fear those big words which make us so unhappy"

James Joyce, Novelist

"He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America"

James Joyce, Novelist

"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age"

James Joyce, Novelist

"And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes"

James Joyce, Novelist

"A nation is the same people living in the same place"

James Joyce, Novelist

"A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery"

James Joyce, Novelist

Page 17 of 56

Quotes by Irish authors