Frequent and violent temptations were a proof that the citadel of the soul had not fallen and that the devil raged to make it fall.
The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue...
There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o’clock, and start writing at once.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
Does nobody understand?
A nation is the same people living in the same place.
When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flown at it to hold it back from flight.
Ineluctable modality of the visible; at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read.
Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.
I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppled masonry, and time one livid final flame.
Beware the horns of a bull, the heels of the horse, and the smile of an Englishman.
By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard it in an echo of the infuriated cries within him.
Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of sky line, the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand: and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools.
Places remember events.
Always see a fellows weak point in his wife.
Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet.
An Irishman needs three things : silence, cunnning, and exile.
There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.
Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatesoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.
Gentle lady, do not sing Sad songs about the end of love; Lay aside sadness and sing How love that passes is enough. Sing about the long deep sleep Of lovers that are dead, and how In the grave all love shall sleep: Love is aweary now.