68 Quotes by James Stephens

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.

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.

Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.

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.

You must be fit to give before you can be fit to receive.

A Leprecaun without a pot of gold is like a rose without perfume, a bird without a wing, or an inside without an outside.

A secret is a weapon and a friend.

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.

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?