Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
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:
O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?
Anyone who won't take a chance now and then isn't worth a damn.
Chance is a funny thing and it is easily mistaken for portent.
I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky."
'Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.
There are three faithful friends,
an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
It is a maxim of old that among themselves all things are common to friends.