James Stephens Quotes

James Stephens shares a reflective voice on life, courage and change that feels a bit grand and invites quiet contemplation.

21 quotes

1. Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

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

3. Because our lives are cowardly and sly, Because we do not dare to take or give, Because we scowl and pass each other by, We do not live; we do not dare to live.

4. If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day; But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange! May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

5. I would think Until I found Something I can never find; - Something Lying On the ground, In the bottom Of my mind.

6. The duty of a lyrical poet is not to express or explain, it is to intensify life.

7. Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing else.

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

9. Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.

10. 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.

11. A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust.

12. I hear a sudden cry of pain! There is a rabbit in a snare.

13. Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. Men come of age at sixty, women at fifteen.

17. A secret is a weapon and a friend.

18. A woman is a branchy tree and man a singing wind; and from her branches carelessly he takes what he can find.

19. Is it not possible that the ultimate end is gaiety and music and a dance of joy?

20. Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.

21. 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.