Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

I must remind you that our credulity is not to be measured by the truth of the things we believe. When men believed that the earthwas flat, they were not credulous: they were using their common sense, and, if asked to prove that the earth was flat, would have said simply, "Look at it." Those who refuse to believe that it is round are exercising a wholesome skepticism.

My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately

If a man is indolent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor.... Also--somewhat inconsistently--blessed are the poor!

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

A man's interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.