263 Quotes by Seamus Heaney

Worst is the man who has all the good adviceAnd then because his nerve fails, fails to actIn accordance with it, as a leader should. And equally to blameIs anyone who puts the personalAbove the overall thing, puts friendOr family first.

Wyrd oft nered unfaegne, eorl, ponne his ellen deah.Often, for undaunted courage,fate spares the man it has not already marked.

The 'voice of sanity' is getting hoarse.

And here is lovelike a tinsmith's scoopsunk past its gleanin the meal-bin.--"Sunlight

Did you ever hear tell,'said Jimmy Farrell,'of the skulls they havein the city of Dublin?White skulls and black skullsand yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven't only but one,' and compounded history in the pan of 'an old Dane,maybe, was drownedin the Flood.'My words lick aroundcobbled quays, go huntinglightly as pampootiesover the skull-capped ground.-Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces

A landscape fossilized,It's stone-wall patterningsRepeated before our eyesIn the stone walls of Mayo.Before I turned to goHe talked about persistence,A congruence of lives,How, stubbed and cleared of stones,His home accrued growth ringsOf iron, flint and bronze- "Belderg

I step through originslike a dog turningits memories of wildernesson the kitchen mat:the bog floor shakes,water cheeps and lispsas I walk downrushes and heather.I love this turf-face,it's black incisions,the cooped secretsof process and ritual:-"Kinship

The diamond absolutes.I am neither internee nor informer;An inner emigre, grown long-hairedAnd thoughtful; a wood-kerneEscaped from the massacre,Taking protective colouringFrom bole and bark, feelingEvery wind that blows;Who, blowing up these sparksFor their meagre heat, have missedThe once-in-a-lifetime portent,The comet's pulsing tose.

No windfall or good fortune comes to mortals That isn't paid for in the coin of pain.