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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.

Random quote on Saint Patrick's Day

Most quoted on saint patrick's day:

Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.

William James The Thought and Character of William James (1935)

I don't have many friends, so I try and be there for the ones that do make it that far.

Michael Lieber The War Hero (2018)

Old friends are the best advisers, but seldom the most agreeable, because they are generally regardless of pleasing at the expense of truth.

Richard Duppa Maxims, Reflections, &c (1830)

There are three creative ideas which, each in its turn, have been central to science. They are the idea of order, the idea of causes, and the idea of chance.

Jacob Bronowski The Common Sense of Science (1951)

Reason gains all men, by compelling none.
Mercy was always Heaven's distinguished mark:
And he, who bears it not, has no friend there.

Aaron Hill Alzira: A Tragedy (1736)

The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned on His bosom. Dear friend, where are you?

Anna Shipton Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

"Friendship and trust" were the foundation of the (current Israeli) government and only "friendship and trust" will keep it in power.

Yair Lapid

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.

Henry David Thoreau

Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.

Herman Melville Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)

The friends that have it I do wrong
Whenever I remake a song
Should know what issue is at stake,
It is myself that I remake.

William Butler Yeats

Dwell in the company of the Lord and forsake the company of the world because one should associate oneself with a friend and there is no friend superior to the Lord.

Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002)

He's just a contact of hers, which is not the same as a friend. While she was in the hospital she decided that most of her friends were really just contacts.

Margaret Atwood Bodily Harm (1981)

In all human affairs, and especially in those that relate to war, ... leave always some room to fortune, and to accidents which cannot be foreseen.

Polybius

Accidents and chance are words used by persons who do not think clearly when they attempt to account for certain happenings. Anyone who thinks must be convinced that in a world as orderly as this there is no room for the words accident and chance.

Harold W. Percival Thinking and Destiny (1946)

“‘Don’t forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.’ It’s from the Bible. Maybe your friend’s an angel too. I hope you were nice to him.”

Sheila Walsh Angel Song (2010)

Everyone experiences ups and downs in their lives. I'm thankful enough to have good friends by my side through them all.

Hebe Tien Hebe Tien (2021)

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

Joyce Carol Oates Do What You Will (1970)

Kipps was unprepared for the unpleasant truth; that the path of social advancement is and must be strewn with broken friendships.

H. G. Wells Kipps the Story of a Simple Soul (1905)

Friendship was just diplomacy by other means, after all.

Kim Stanley Robinson Red Mars (1992)

There are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or through pleasure and pain.

Ptolemy

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