Quote collection
591 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"When I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens."
"What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone."
"Is it not certain that the Creator yawns in earthquake and thunder and other popular displays, but toils in rounding the delicate spiral of a shell? -Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil"
"I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young / And weep because I know all things now."
"Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery."
"Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave."
"What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?"
""Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea." The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days."
"Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues."
"Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power."
"God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days."
"somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds."
"... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild."
"now I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound."
"But stories that live longest Are sung above the glass, And Parnell loved his country And Parnell loved his lass."
"Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality."
"Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears."
"There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings."
"All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low."
"And I will find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,/ Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings."