Guess quote

James Stephens [1882-1950] Irish

Rank: 106
Poet (with poems), Novelist

National, Myth

James Stephens was an Irish novelist and poet.
James' mother worked in the home of the Collins family of Dublin and was adopted by them. James was brought up in a Protestant orphanage, the Meath Protestant Industrial School for Boys. He attended school with his adopted brothers Thomas and Richard before graduating as a solicitor's clerk. They competed and won several athletic competitions despite James' slight stature. He was known affectionately as 'Tiny Tim'.

Death, Experience, Fear, Happiness, Knowledge, Wisdom

Quote	Tags	Rank
A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust.		101
A woman is a branchy tree and man a singing wind; and from her branches carelessly he takes what he can find.		102
Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.		103
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.		104
Under all wrongdoing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows.		105
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.	Fear	106
Life runs to death as its goal, and we should go towards that next stage of experience either carelessly as to what must be, or with a good, honest curiosity as to what may be.	Death, Experience	107
Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.		108
Chaos is the first condition. Order is the first law. Continuity is the first reflection. Quietude is the first happiness.	Happiness	109
Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.		110
A Leprecaun without a pot of gold is like a rose without perfume, a bird without a wing, or an inside without an outside.		111
If men understood domestic economy half as well as women do, then their political economy and their entire consequent statecraft would not be the futil muddle which it is.		112
To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.		113
Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to be sought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not know what is forward, for while seeing is believing, it does not follow that either seeing or believing is knowing.	Knowledge	114
There is no tragedy more woeful than the victory of hate, nor any attainment so hopelessly barren as the sterility of that achievement; for hate is finality, and finality is the greatest evil which can happen in a world of movement.		115
Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.		116
You must be fit to give before you can be fit to receive.		117
What the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow.		118
Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision for they are both surrounded by enemies.		119
A secret is a weapon and a friend.		120
The inexorable compulsion of all things is towards health or destruction, life or death, and we hasten our joys or our woes to the logical extreme. It is urgent, therefore, that we be joyous if we wish to live.		121
In that wide struggle which we call Progress, evil is always the aggressor and the vanquished, and it is right that this should be so, for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to a fat slumber upon its cornsacks and die snoring.		122
Man works outwardly and inwardly - after rest, he has energy; after energy, he needs repose; so, when we have given instruction for a time, we need instruction and must receive it, or the spirit faints and wisdom herself grows bitter.	Wisdom	123
The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for how shall we live if judgement is withheld, or if faulty decisions are promulgated?		124
Men come of age at sixty, women at fifteen.		125
To understand the theory which underlies all things is not sufficient. Theory is but the preparation for practice.		126
Women are stronger than men - they do not die of wisdom.		201
To work is nothing; the king on his throne, the priest kneeling before the Holy Altar, all people in all places had to work, but no person at all need be a servant.		202
Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera.		203
By having much, you are fitted to have more.		204
We are washed both on coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from the first washing nor any profit from the last.		205
Any fool can wash himself, but every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labour, for nature will quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again.		206
A man and a woman may become quite intimate in a quarter of an hour. Almost certainly will they endeavour to explain themselves to each other before many minutes have elapsed; but a man and a man will not do this, and even less so will a woman and a woman, for these are parallel lines which will never meet.		207
The mysteries of death and birth occupy women far more than is the case with men, to whom political and mercantile speculations are more congenial.		208
God did not need any assistance, but man did; bitterly he wanted it, and the giving of such assistance was the proper business of a woman.		209
When a woman speaks to a man about the love she feels for another man, she is not liked.		210

The script ran 0.002 seconds.