Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'

I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.