Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As adults, we do know more, but we don't know enough. People can be very unthinkingly callous.
Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintances.
My father I liked, but it was only after his death that I got to know him by writing the play.
The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.
With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it's not just a trick of the devil.
It's no longer a warmth hidden in my veins: it's Venus entire and whole fastening on her prey.
Me, rule? Me, place the State under my law, when my feeble reason no longer rules even myself!
However stupid a fools words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.
Ambition displeases when it has been sated ... having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.
To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked.
Spurn not the nobly born with love affected; nor treat with virtuous scorn the well connected.
The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.
Look at the sun! It’s dry, it’s dead, it needs a drink, it wants blood! And I’ll give it blood!
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
After all there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.
That, let us rail at women, scorn and flout 'em, We may live with, but cannot live without 'em.
Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.
Oh, love is real enough; you will find it someday, but it has one archenemy - and that is life.
If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing.
All men have one refuge, a good friend, with whom you can weep and know that he does not smile.
Our treasures trifles seem, and all our life is dreaming, and the dreams themselves are dreams.
All great virtues become great men. [Fr., Toutes grandes vertus conviennent aux grands hommes.]
The universe has no prince or king that it [Rome] would consider equal to its humblest citizen.
The artist is the compass which, through the raging of the storm, points steadily to the north.
What is a street? It is where the living weep, where the dead go off in silence to their peace.
I have heard people eat most heartily of another man's meat, that is, what they do not pay for.
I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.
Death is easier than a wretched life; and better never to have born than to live and fare badly.
But still the block of Vengeance firm doth stand, and Fate, as swordsmith, hammers blow on blow.
If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.
Nought is there in wealth That serves as bulwark 'gainst the subtle stealth Of Destiny and Doom.
Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.
Be it only for a day, it is still a glory without equal to be master of the world just that day.
Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous.
That's the Irish all over -- they treat a joke as a serious thing and a serious thing as a joke.
For one to grasp, whatever be his object, sov'reign power ... is an act of perilous presumption.
We didn't say anything because there was such an awful lot to say, and no language to say it in.
The air is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven, Zeus all that is, and what transcends them all.
For in the voyage of the heart, there is a freight of hatred, and the wind of wrath blows shrill.
Vanity and dignity are incompatible with each other; vain women are almost sure to be vulnerable.
Then, when I was a senior in high school, I was kind of bereft and she put me in an acting class.
A sovereign's great example forms a people; the public breast is noble or vile as he inspires it.
Uncertainty! fell demon of our fears! The human soul that can support despair, supports not thee.
Revolution is like the daughters of Pelias: it cuts humanity to pieces in order to rejuvenate it.
Writing, madam, is a mechanic part of wit. A gentleman should never go beyond a song or a billet.
Next to the coming to a good understanding with a new mistress, I love a quarrel with an old one.
The glory of my name increases my shame. Less known by mortals, I could better escape their eyes.
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.
Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time.
The secret of living is to find a pivot, the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand.