Old Celtic Quotes & Sayings

Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in 'Old Ireland.' It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite. — Anne Enright

Each of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it. — Colleen McCullough

Losing your job gives you the ability to decide what product each unit of your passing life should produce — Sunday Adelaja

And then you met me," I said.
"And then I met you," she said, smiling softly.
"And all was right with the world," I joked.
"Exactly," she said seriously. — Fisher Amelie

His ability to evoke Celtic pride was incredible. He would always talk about how all the old players called him up after an embarrasing performance and wanted to disassociate themselves from the Celtics. They wanted to mail in their championship rings, wanted their numbers removed from the rafters, and by this point there would be tears rolling down our cheeks and we'd want to kill. — Bill Walton

There's an old Celtic proverb that I follow: See much, study much, suffer much is the path to wisdom. — Greg Jackson

I will burn, but this is a mere event. We shall continue our discussion in eternity. — Michael Servetus

It's as if I've never seen Jane before, never known her. With just an undervest on, she looks unbelievably thin. Arms no wider than the sticks of a bower. A collarbone protuding from the skin in all its detail. And with that one gesture, I learn the fundamental truth of her. When she takes off her sweater and, without thinking, hands it over to David to use as wool, I can see how Jane loves. And I know -with all my heart I know- that there is no protection in the world for someone who loves like that. — Helen Humphreys

An old Celtic proverb boldly places death right at the center of life. 'Death is the middle of a long life,' they used to say. Ancient people did things like that; they put death at the center instead of casting it out of sight and leaving such an important subject until the last possible moment. Of course, they lived close to nature and couldn't help but see how the forest grew from fallen trees and how death seemed to replenish life from fallen members. Only the unwise and the overly fearful think that death is the blind enemy of life. — Michael Meade

The more you know about another person's story, the less possible it is to see that person as your enemy. — Parker J. Palmer

Don't worry, Jet. Just as long as we don't get into any situations that require grenades, we'll be fine." Indy said this like she wasn't joking. — Kristen Ashley

You sleep with a dream of summer weather,
wake to the thrum of rain - roped down by rain.
Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass
and rainy air. The plastic table on the terrace
has shed three legs on its way to the garden fence.
The mountains have had the sense to disappear.
It's the Celtic temperament - wind, then torrents, then remorse.
Glory rising like a curtain over distant water.
Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark,
docks in a pool of shadow all its own.
That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck.
Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on. — Anne Stevenson

When I was collecting material for a political gossip column, and someone said something interesting, I would wait for them to add, 'and I don't want to read that in your magazine!' In which case I wouldn't use it. But if they didn't remember to say it, I'd nip off to the loo, write the story up, come back and change the subject. — Simon Hoggart

Every student is inquisitive Some say it, some don't — Harsh Malik

Go ahead, kill without mercy. After all, who remembers today the Armenian Genocide? — Adolf Hitler

For the benefit of your research people, I would like to mention (so as to avoid any duplication of labor): that the planet is very like Mars; that at least seventeen states have Pinedales; that the end of the top paragraph Galley 3 is an allusion to the famous "canals" (or, more correctly, "channels") of Schiaparelli (and Percival Lowell); that I have thoroughly studied the habits of chinchillas; that Charrete is old French and should have one "t"; that Boke's source on Galley 9 is accurate; that "Lancelotik" is not a Celtic diminutive but a Slavic one; that "Betelgeuze" is correctly spelled with a "z", not an "s" as some dictionaries have it; that the "Indigo" Knight is the result of some of my own research; that Sir Grummore, mentioned both in Le Morte Darthur ad in Amadis de Gaul, was a Scotsman; that L'Eau Grise is a scholarly pun; and that neither bludgeons nor blandishments will make me give up the word "hobnailnobbing". — Vladimir Nabokov

The folk of a Celtic type, whether pre-Celtic, Celtic, or Norse, have all spoken a Celtic language and exhibit the same old Celtic characteristics - vanity, loquacity, excitability, fickleness, imagination, love of the romantic, fidelity, attachment to family ties, sentimental love of their country, religiosity passing over easily to superstition, and a comparatively high degree of sexual morality. — John Arnott MacCulloch

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family. — William Jones

A man is never ugly". — Buchi Emecheta

Our country is failing to live up to its promise of opportunity and fairness. It used to be true that if you went to college and you worked hard, you could count on having a decent middle-class life - but that's just not true anymore. Economic and political changes that have occurred over the past three decades have made the middle-class American dream for today's twenty- and thirtysomethings far less possible than it was for their parents' generation. It's not that we're lazy, that we have no work ethic, or that we have outrageous spending habits. It's that we've been screwed. — Camille Perri

Eli's long fingers cupped her face, traced the nape of her neck, kept her still, as if he needed to give her every bit of his attention, as if he could learn her like a language, plot her like a course. Eli kissed Gracie like she was a song and he was determined to hear every note. — Leigh Bardugo

Kiana loved birds," Breena told him late one dusky evening. "When she was just a few summers old, she would run beneath them as they flew, her chubby arms stretched out as if tmo take flight alongside them." She sniffed and wrapped her arms around her stomach. "A few weeks before the attack, she told me that she was still going to fly one day. 'I look at the birds, and I see freedom,' she said. 'To soar above the hurt of the world, to be too high for the wars of men to touch you: that is what it means to fly. — Elizabeth Wilson

The Christian saints did not merely resemble the old polytheistic gods. Often they were these very same gods in disguise. For example, the chief goddess of Celtic Ireland prior to the coming of Christianity was Brigid. When Ireland was Christianised, Brigid too was baptised. She became St Brigit, who to this day is the most revered saint in Catholic Ireland. The — Yuval Noah Harari

Usually, the biggest problems of adapting plays into screenplays is that they stick too close to the play, and I think film is a completely different medium. I think a novel is much closer to a film ... — Arthur Miller

When some portion of the biosphere is rather unpopular with the human race-a crocodile, a dandelion, a stony valley, a snowstorm, an odd-shaped flint-there are three sorts of human being who are particularly likely still to see point in it and befriend it. They are poets, scientists and children. Inside each of us, I suggest, representatives of all these groups can be found. — Mary Midgley

Youth has a quickness of apprehension, which it is very apt to mistake for an acuteness of penetration. — Hannah More

Freud's theory was that when a joke opens a window and all those bats and bogeymen fly out, you get a marvellous feeling of relief and elation. The trouble with Freud is that he never had to play the old Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night after Rangers and Celtic had both lost. — Ken Dodd