Traditional Irish Fairy Tales Quotes

“Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“It is by love alone that we understand anything”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“A poem is a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“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.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“In truth we do not go to Faery, we become Fairy, and in the beating of a pulse we may live for a year or a thousand years.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Why do you live on the bank of a river?' was one of these questions.
'Because a poem in a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike each other. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil,are not absent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there is life there is action, and action is but the expression of one or other of these qualities.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Even the wind had ceased, and there seemed to be nothing in the world but the darkness and himself. In that gigantic blackness, in that unseen quietude and vacancy, the mind could cease to be personal to itself. It could be overwhelmed and merged in space, so that consciousness would be transferred or dissipated, and one might sleep standing; for the mind fears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon rather than be driven inwards on its own being.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“There is a difference between this world and the world of Faery, but it is not immediately perceptible. Everything that is here is there, but the things that are there are better than those that are here. All things that are bright are there brighter. There is more gold in the sun and more silver in the moon of that land. There is more scent in the flowers, more savour in the fruit. There is more comeliness in the men and more tenderness in the women. Everything in Faery is better by this one wonderful degree, and it is by this betterness you will know that you are there if you should ever happen to get there.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Fionn went [...] to carve a name for himself that will live while Time has an ear and knows an Irishman”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“All desires save one are fleeting, but that one lasts for ever. Fionn, with all desires, had the lasting one, for he would go anywhere and forsake anything for wisdom;”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“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. Many a person can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as little about it as the person who does neither.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales

“Under all wrong-doing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“But the term of man and woman, of king or queen, is set in the stars, and there is no escaping Doom for any one;”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“There is no danger where there is light”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“Deeds grow old in a day and are buried in a night. New memories come crowding on old ones, and one must learn to forget as well as to remember.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“For there are two things not easily controlled, and they are hunger and jealousy.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“But the law of life is change; nothing continues in the same way for any length of time; happiness must become unhappiness, and will be succeeded again by the joy it had displaced. The past also must be reckoned with; it is seldom as far behind us as we could wish: it is more often in front, blocking the way, and the future trips over it just when we think that the road is clear and joy our own.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“For the mind fears loneliness more than all else, and will escape to the moon rather than be driven inwards on its own being.”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“Fear cannot be where knowledge is”
― James Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales: By James Stephens - Illustrated

“L'amore ci rende poveri. Non ci bastano gli occhi per vedere tutto ciò che è da vedere, né le mani per stringere un decimo di tutto ciò che desidereremmo. Quando la guardo negli occhi mi tormento perché non posso guardare le sue labbra, e quando vedo le sue labbra la mia anima grida: "Guarda i suoi occhi, guarda i suoi occhi!".”
― James Stephens, Traditional Irish Fairy Tales

“Be at peace all of you, for hunger has a whip, and he will drive the strange away in the night.”
― James Stephens, Traditional Irish Fairy Tales