Ireland is not just somewhere, it’s something made of verse and jests, hardship and hope, keen affection for ground and tongue. From ancient Irish poems to comical Irish proverbs, the heart of the country survives in lines. Many great Irish authors caught the spirit of the land through quotes about Ireland, sayings about Ireland and well-known Irish quotes that go on moving people all over the globe.
Quotes about the Irish and Ireland capture strength, humor, feeling. Great quotes about the Irish can be found in dozens of lines uttered by four Irish literary immortals whose voices ring on with words that lay down deeply inspirational quotes Irish voices that echo across generations.
W.B. Yeats
- “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
- “In dreams begin responsibilities.”
- “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
- “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
- “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
- “Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”
- “A line will take us hours maybe; yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”
- “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”
- “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”
- “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
- “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
- “We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
- “Wine comes in at the mouth and love comes in at the eye.”
- “The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.”
- “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth.”
- “Red is the rose in yonder garden grows.”
- “I have spread my dreams under your feet.”
- “Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!”
- “An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.”
- “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
- “Man is in love and loves what vanishes.”
- “The fascination of what’s difficult has dried the sap out of my veins.”
- “The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
- “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.”
- “Peace comes dropping slow.”
- “The centre cannot hold.”
- “A terrible beauty is born.”
- “The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work.”
- “We begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy.”
Oscar Wilde
- “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
- “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
- “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
- “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
- “I can resist everything except temptation.”
- “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
- “No good deed goes unpunished.”
- “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
- “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
- “Women are made to be loved, not understood.”
- “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
- “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
- “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”
- “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
- “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
- “Art is the only serious thing in the world.”
- “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
- “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
- “We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
- “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
- “The heart was made to be broken.”
- “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
- “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
- “Men always want to be a woman’s first love; women like to be a man’s last romance.”
- “With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
- “The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.”
- “One can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
- “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship.”
- “I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
James Joyce
- “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
- “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
- “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today.”
- “Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.”
- “Love loves to love love.”
- “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself.”
- “Shut your eyes and see.”
- “No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.”
- “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience.”
- “Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion.”
- “Absence, the highest form of presence.”
- “Your battles inspired me.”
- “The longest way round is the shortest way home.”
- “He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself.”
- “I hear an army charging upon the land.”
- “Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped.”
- “Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice.”
- “Every life is many days, day after day.”
- “They lived and laughed and loved and left.”
- “The demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”
- “A nation is the same people living in the same place.”
- “Time is, time was, but time shall be no more.”
- “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe.”
- “The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future.”
- “He felt that he was alone.”
- “His soul swooned slowly.”
- “The snotgreen sea.”
- “A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window.”
- “Snow was general all over Ireland.”
Seamus Heaney
- “Walk on air against your better judgment.”
- “Hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge.”
- “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests.”
- “The pen rests; snug as a gun.”
- “Digging.”
- “I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”
- “History says, Don’t hope on this side of the grave.”
- “Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.”
- “The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.”
- “Human beings suffer; they torture one another.”
- “Poetry is a revelation of the self to the self.”
- “Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.”
- “Anything can happen.”
- “The earth has its music for those who will listen.”
- “Be advised, my passport’s green.”
- “So hope for a great sea-change.”
- “The end of art is peace.”
- “I felt my powers.”
- “The cold smell of potato mould.”
- “By God, the old man could handle a spade.”
- “Noli timere.”
- “The famous Northern reticence.”
- “A call.”
- “The music of what happens.”
- “I am Hamlet the Dane.”
- “This is me, this is me.”
- “The cure at Troy.”
- “Follow the voice.”
- “Live in the present tense.”
FAQs About Quotes About Ireland
What is a short quote about Ireland?
“Ireland is the land of a thousand welcomes.”
What is a famous saying in Ireland?
“May the road rise to meet you.”
What is the motto of Ireland?
“Éire go Brách” (Ireland Forever)
What is a short Irish blessing?
“May your days be touched with a bit of Irish luck.”
Conclusion
These famous quotes of Ireland reveal a nation rich in wisdom, humor, resilience and poetic beauty. Whether you’re celebrating Irish heritage, enjoying the holiday season or simply seeking inspiration, these famous Ireland quotes and Irish quotes short connect the past with the present.
