Quotations For St. Patrick's Day

Guest Author - Danielle Hollister

"The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation . . . surpass in atrocity any tenets that have ever been admitted into any pagan creed."
-- William Lecky (1838–1903)
"Every St. Patrick's Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to."
--Shane Leslie
"All I ever seemed to get was the kind of girl who had a special dispensation from Rome to wear the thickest part of her legs below the knee."
-- Hugh Leonard
"The problem with Ireland is that it’s a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent."
-- Hugh Leonard
"Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat."
-- Alex Levine
"O Ireland isn't it grand you look--Like a bride in her rich adornin? And with all the pent-up love of my heart I bid you the top o' the mornin!"
-- John Locke "The Exile's Return"
"No human being believes that any other human being has a right to be in bed when he himself is up."
-- Robert Lynd
"Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead."
-- Robert Lynd
Group of People at St. Patrick's Day ...
"In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs."
-- Sir John Pentland Mahaffy
"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."
-- W. Somerset Maugham
"Way a wee screwed up protestant face and a head a black hair a was born, in a state of original sin. Me Ma didn't like me, but whose to blame the poor woman - sure a didn't look lik a catholic wain at all."
-- Frances Molloy
"I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish!"
-- Marianne Moore
"On she went, and her maiden smile In safety lighted her round the Green Isle; And blest forever was she who relied Upon Erin's honor and Erin's pride."
-- Thomas Moore
"When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious."
-- Edna O'Brien (1932– )
"A lament in one ear, maybe, but always a song in the other."
-- Sean O'Casey
"The whole worl's in a state o' chassis."
-- Sean O.Casey (1884–1964)
"Maybe it's bred in the bone, but the sound of pipes is a little bit of heaven to some of us."
-- Nancy O'Keefe
"Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England . . . Ireland is not a geographical fragment, but a nation."
-- Charles Stewart Parnell (1846—1891)
"Eternal is the fact that the human creature born in Ireland and brought up in its air is Irish. I have lived for twenty years in Ireland and for seventy-two in England; but the twenty came first, and in Britain I am still a foreigner and shall die one."
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950 )
"Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity."
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"A man who loses his money gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"A life making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more."
-- James Stephens (1882–1950)
"Why should you never iron a 4-leaf clover? You don't want to press your luck."
-- Daryl Stout
"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."
-- Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
"Books, the children of the brain."
-- Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Mug of Green Beer Beside Green St. Pa...
"There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting."
-- John Millington Synge (1871–1909)
"One wonders in this place, why anyone is left in Dublin, or London, or Paris where it would be better, one would think to live in a tent or hut, with this magnificent sea and sky, and to breathe this wonderful air which is like wine in one's teeth."
-- J. M. Synge
"Saint Patrick was a gentleman...Who through strategy and stealth...Drove all the snakes from Ireland...Here's a drinkee to his health! But not too many drinkees...Lest we lose ourselves and then...Forget the good Saint Patrick...And see them snakes again!"
-- Unknown
"Anyone acquainted with Ireland knows that the morning of St. Patrick's Day consists of the night of the 17th of March flavored strongly with the morning of the 18th."
-- Unknown
"Oh, Paddy, dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?"
-- Unknown
"We . . . are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence."
-- W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) speech in the Irish Senate, June 11, 1925
"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
-- Oscar Wilde (1854–1932)
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
-- Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
"If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society would be quite civilized."
-- Oscar Wilde
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde
"I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood—sex and the dead."
-- W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)
"The intellect is forced to choose: Perfection of the life, or of the work."
-- W. B. Yeats
"Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire."
-- W. B. Yeats