The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at crossroads.

I am completely half afraid to think.

Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.

Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition ... must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.

After a time," said old Mathers disregarding me, "I mercifully perceived the errors of my ways and the unhappy destination I would reach unless I mended them. I retired from the world in order to try to comprehend it and to find out why it becomes more unsavoury as the years accumulate on a man's body. What do you think I discovered at the end of my meditations?" I felt pleased again. He was now questioning me. "What?" "That No is a better word than Yes," he replied.

The first beginnings of wisdom...is to ask questions but never to answer any.

When money's tight and is hard to get And your horse has also ran, When all you have is a heap of debt A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.