Quotes from James Stephens

Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory

Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.

Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.

What the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow

It is by love alone that we understand anything

It has occurred to me, brother, that wisdom may not be the end to everything. Goodness and kindness are, perhaps, beyond wisdom. Is it not possible that the ultimate end is music and gaiety and a dance of joy? Wisdom is the oldest of all things. Wisdom is all head and no heart.Behold, brother, you are being crushed under the weight of your head. You are dying of old age while you are yet a child.

Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera.

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.

A poem is a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.

In truth we do not go to Faery, we become Fairy, and in the beating of a pulse we may live for a year or a thousand years.

Why do you live on the bank of a river?' was one of these questions. 'Because a poem in a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.

There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike each other. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil,are not absent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there is life there is action, and action is but the expression of one or other of these qualities.

After a lie truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and serene goddess knew or hoped for—it is a disease, it is a moral syphilis and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been purged.

Even the wind had ceased, and there seemed to be nothing in the world but the darkness and himself. In that gigantic blackness, in that unseen quietude and vacancy, the mind could cease to be personal to itself. It could be overwhelmed and merged in space, so that consciousness would be transferred or dissipated, and one might sleep standing; for the mind fears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon rather than be driven inwards on its own being.

Originalitatea nu const? în a spune ce nu a mai spus nimeni, ci în a spune exact ceea ce gândeÈ™ti tu însuÈ›i.

But outside of the North of Ireland there is no religious question, and in the North it is fundamentally more political than religious.

Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it, said the Philosopher.

Fionn went [...] to carve a name for himself that will live while Time has an ear and knows an Irishman

The toxin generates the anti-toxin. The end lies concealed in the beginning. All bodies grow around a skeleton. Life is a petticoat about death.

The chief business of the gods is to give protection and assistance to such of their people as require it; but...they cannot give any help until it is demanded, the free-will of mankind being the most jealously guarded and holy principle in life; therefore, the interference of the loving gods comes only on an equally loving summons.

To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.

Every child knows that every grown female person in the world has authority to wash children and to give them food; that is what grown people were made for

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

L'amore ci rende poveri. Non ci bastano gli occhi per vedere tutto ciò che è da vedere, né le mani per stringere un decimo di tutto ciò che desidereremmo. Quando la guardo negli occhi mi tormento perché non posso guardare le sue labbra, e quando vedo le sue labbra la mia anima grida: Guarda i suoi occhi, guarda i suoi occhi!.