Irish Words Quotes & Sayings

Books of the sages of the ages reflect upon in stages; like honey their words on the tongue give due savour."
{Source: A Green Desert Father} — Richard Mc Sweeney

Say what you said before again. The Irish thing. I want to say it back to you."
He smiled. Took her hand. "You'll never pronounce it."
"Yes, I will."
Still smiling, he said it slowly, waited for her to fumble through. But her eyes stayed steady and serious as she brought his hand to her heart, laid hers on his, and repeated the words.
She saw emotion move over his face. His heart leaped hard against her hand. "You undo me, Eve."
He sat up, dropped his brow against hers. "Thank God for you," he murmured in a voice gone raw. "Thank God for you. — J.D. Robb

We Irish had the right word on the tip of our tongue, but the imperialist got at that. What should trip off it we trip over. — Brigid Brophy

If the wise erred not, it would goe hard with fooles.
[If the wise erred not, it would go hard with fools.] — George Herbert

One of Francie's favorite stores was the one which sold nothing but tea, coffee, and spices. It was an exciting place of rows of lacquered bins and strange, romantic, exotics odors. There were a dozen scarlet coffee bins with adventurous words written across the front in black China ink: Brazil! Argentine! Turkish! Java! Mixed Blend! The tea was in smaller bins: beautiful bins with sloping covers. They read: Oolong! Formosa! Orange Pekoe! Black China! Flowering Almond! Jasmine! Irish Tea! The spices were in miniature bins behind the counter. Their names marches in a row across the shelves: cinnamon
cloves
ginger
all-spice
ball nutmeg
curry
peppercorns
sage
thyme
marjoram. — Betty Smith

I find it impossible not to believe that there's something in Irish blood that favors their power with words. — Jim Harrison

I think the entire world knows, and North Korea knows, that if they used any weapons on our soldiers they would be obliterated. And it would be an overwhelming response. — Rand Paul

For Alwyn's grandfather, who was known as "the greatest talker in the country," used words which no one else understood, words which he did not understand, and words which do not exist, to swell a passionate theme, to confound his neighbors in an argument, and for their own sake. He would say, for example, "My farm was the very apocalypse of fertility, but the renter has rested on his oars till it is good for nothing," or "Manifest the bounty to pass the salt shaker in my direction." Something of the Bible, something of an Irish inheritance, something of a liar's anxiety, made of his most ordinary remark a strange and wearisome oratory. — Glenway Wescott

Science words," I warned. "When you say 'hemoglobin' I just think of little Irish tricksters who live in caves, or Lord of the Rings."
"You mean 'goblin'?"
"Yes. — Temple West

Being Irish, I always had this love of words. — Kenneth Branagh

She had been born with a different name, to a woman with laughing eyes and warmly whispered words of love who'd died degraded and afraid on a misty Irish morning. — C.S. Harris

But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible. — Anne McCaffrey

But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. — James Joyce

I caddied - more accurately, I drove the golf cart - for Father O'Leary and his friends throughout most of the summer of that year. I was a good caddie because I saw nothing when they passed the bottle of whiskey and turned a deaf ear to yet another colorful reinvention of the words "motherless son of a bitch from hell" when the golf ball betrayed them. — John William Tuohy

It is just so cool to play on the beach right next to the water. I am deeply moved by water as I think most people are - so to play music with it is a most powerful experience. — Jim James

The Catholics get rid of the difficulty by setting up an infallible Pope, and consenting formally to accept his verdicts, but the Protestants simply chase their own tails. By depriving revelation of all force and authority, they rob their so-called religion of every dignity. It becomes, in their hands, a mere romantic imposture, unsatisfying to the pious and unconvincing to the judicious. — H.L. Mencken

Truth is treason in the empire of lies. — Ron Paul

First a piece of Irish wisdom: you should always listen to a bookie. For they have a saying, 'Money tells a good story,' and somewhere in their odds is a kind of science-fiction existentialism that decrees that we, the people, know everything. In other words, betting patterns often make for good, unconscious soothsaying. — Frank Delaney

We see no objects in our universe that could become wormholes as they age. — Kip Thorne

I knew lots of Irish ladies in my life who would say daft things and then would just say something incredibly truthful in a very simple way with simple language - a few well chosen words that would take an intellectual five minutes to express. I like that. — Steve Coogan

I thought it would be a good thing to follow John Redmond's words. I thought for my mother's sake, her gentle soul, for the sake of my own children, I might go out and fight for to save Europe so that we might have the Home Rule in Ireland in the upshot. I came out to fight for a country that doesn't exist, and now, Willie, mark my words, it never will. — Sebastian Barry

And there I saw in the night the vision of a man ... coming as it were from Ireland, with countless letters. And he gave me one of them, and I read the opening words of the letter, which were, The voice of the Irish ... and as I read the beginning of the letter I thought that at the same moment I heard their voice - they were those beside the Wood of Voclut, which is near the Western Sea - and thus did they cry out as with one mouth: We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more. — Saint Patrick

Water seeks its own level and water rises collectively — Julia Cameron

One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes. — Jean Webster

You can earn back the respect of the guys if you give them something to respect. — Jason Redman

Compassion Judgment Loving-Kindness Compassion Is A Force Disconnection Self-Blame and Compassion Praise and Blame — Sharon Salzberg

I'm forever being told that I'm an odd-looking actress, so it's great playing parts where there's no vanity. You just look as rough as you possibly can! — Anna Maxwell Martin

I fancy that the Irish language must have 57 different words for 'rain', in the same way that Inuit has for 'snow'. If, in reality, this is not the case, then I'm really glad I've never bothered to learn Irish'. — Stephen Price

To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood, or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute. There have been instances when a man has still hoped for escape, running or begging for mercy after his throat was cut. But in the other case all that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, is taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For all their reputation for chattiness and storytelling, the Irish I knew were so skillful with words there was sometimes no need for them at all. — Camille DeAngelis

Ah, you're an Irish lass." "As are you." His smile tipped and laughter twinkled in his eyes. "Not a lass, exactly, but Irish-born, for sure." Wasn't that just like a man. Knew exactly what she meant and yet turned her words about. "You know full well I didn't mean you were a lass." "Didn't you now? — Sarah M. Eden

Without artists, would this heritage have descended to us? Would the words and deeds - the revelation - have survived the arduous journey into the present without the painters, the mosaic workers, the storytellers, the stone carvers, the poets, the singers, the workers in stained glass? Wasn't it art, I thought - as I watched Bernard open a handsome black wallet and remove a handful of lire - that had been the carrier of the divine? Popes had understood that. The Emperor Constantine. Monks in damp Irish monasteries illuminating the Word. — Rachel Pastan

She knew them by their thick woven cloaks, their hanging hair and beards, and their Anglisc voices: words drumming like apples spilt over wooden boards, round, rich, stirring. Like her father's words, and her mother's, and her sister's. Utterly unlike Onnen's otter-swift British or the dark liquid gleam of Irish. Hild spoke each to each. Apples to apples, otter to otter, gleam to gleam, though only when her mother wasn't there. — Nicola Griffith

The English possessed as many words for stealing as the Irish had for seaweed or guilt. — Joseph O'Connor

What a woman you are," he murmured, and she heard the emotion in it, the
way the Irish thickened just a bit in his voice. And saw it in those vivid eyes when he drew back. "That you would think of this. That you would do this."
He shook his head, kissed her. Like the breath, long and quiet.
"I can't thank you enough. There isn't enough thanks. I can't say what this means to me, even to you. I don't have the words for it." He took her hands,
brought them both to his lips. "A ghra. You stagger me."
He framed her face now, touched his lips to her brow. "You're the beat of my heart, the breath in my body, the light in my soul. — J.D. Robb