Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it.

Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven, and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse.

What right has any human being to talk of bringing up a child? You do not bring up a tree or a plant. It brings itself up. You have to give it a fair chance by tilling the soil.

When you prevent me from doing anything I want to do, that is persecution; when I prevent you from doing anything you want to do, that is law, order, and morals.

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one, and do without change

I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum

I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals.