Quotes from Seamus Heaney

Obedience And respect must be instilled. And that is why No woman here is going to be allowed To walk all over us. Otherwise, as men We'll be disgraced. We won't deserve the name.

Time and again, when the goblets passed and seasoned fighters got flushed with beer they would pledge themselves to protect Heorot and wait for Grendel with whetted swords. But when dawn broke and day crept in over each empty, blood-spattered bench, the floor of the mead-hall where they had feasted would be slick with slaughter. And so they died, faithful retainers, and my following dwindled.

It bothers me to have to burden anyone with all the grief Grendel has caused and the havoc he has wreaked upon us in Heorot, our humiliations

But when dawn broke and day crept in over each empty, blood-spattered bench, the floor of the mead-hall where they had feasted would be slick with slaughter. And so they died, faithful retainers, and my following dwindled.

My flesh was not for feasting on

He knows he can trample down you Danes to his heart's content, humiliate and murder without fear of reprisal. But he will find me different. I will show him how Geats shape to kill in the heat of battle.

Let me educate you In one short sentence. War has an appetite For human goodness but it won't touch the bad.

Life is shaky. Never, son, forget How risky and slippy things are in this world. Walk easy when the jug's full, and don't ever Take your luck for granted. Count your blessings And always be ready to pity other people.

Never, since my hand could hold a shield have I entrusted or given control of the Danes' hall to anyone but you. … There's nothing you wish for that won't be yours

Past and present, God's will prevails.

How am I to keep on praising gods If they keep disappointing me, and never Match the good on my side with their good?

the wide kingdom reverted to Beowulf. He ruled it well for fifty winters, grew old and wise as warden of the land

Candour before canniness. Doing the right thing And not just saying it.

The veteran king sat down on the cliff-top. He wished good luck to the Geats who had shared his hearth and his gold. He was sad at heart, unsettled yet ready, sensing his death. His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain: it would soon claim his coffered soul, part life from limb

Anyone ready to admit the truth will surely realize that the lord of men who showered you with gifts and gave you the armour you are standing in …. was throwing weapons uselessly away.

They said that of all the kings upon the earth he was the man most gracious and fair-minded, kindest to his people

Whoever has been spared the worst is lucky.

Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured.

It was a fortunate wind That blew me here. I leave Half-ready to believe That a crippled trust might walk And the half-true rhyme is love. - From "Voices from Lemnos

I am not the target. I am the archer. My shafts are tipped with truth and they stick deep.

And found myself then thinking: if it were nowadays, This is how Death would summon Everyman.

They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure, gold under gravel, gone to earth, as useless to men now as it ever was.

Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.

You are like a rich man entering heaven/through the ear of a raindrop.