There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.

I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.

I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.

Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.

In dreams begins responsibility.

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.