Saint Patrick's Day Quotes
No Irish collection sits under this page. It comes from two others, luck and friendship, which is about as close as a mechanical match can get to a day of toasts. The luck page leans on Seneca, Livy and Shakespeare, and on Horace’s complaint about Fortune, so expect fortune in the Roman sense rather than the four-leaf kind.
Two of its entries, from Torquato Tasso, are flagged misattributed. If you want an Irish writer, use the search box. Wilde and Shaw are both on the site.
Most quoted on saint patrick's day:
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where.
I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance.
Alas! by what slight means are great affairs brought to destruction.
Ah, child. What are we without friends? Just severed heads rolling across the sands.
I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
You must therefore love me, myself, and not my circumstances, if we are to be real friends.
A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend is life too short.
Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.