Top 30 James Stephens Quotes

You must be fit to give before you can be fit to receive.

Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera.

Life runs to death as its goal, and we should go towards that next stage of experience either carelessly as to what must be, or with a good, honest curiosity as to what may be.

Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision for they are both surrounded by enemies.

What the heart knows today the head will understand tomorrow.

Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.

Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to be sought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not know what is forward, for while seeing is believing, it does not follow that either seeing or believing is knowing.

By having much, you are fitted to have more.

If men understood domestic economy half as well as women do, then their political economy and their entire consequent statecraft would not be the futil muddle which it is.

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

Chaos is the first condition. Order is the first law. Continuity is the first reflection. Quietude is the first happiness.

A woman is a branchy tree and man a singing wind; and from her branches carelessly he takes what he can find.

A secret is a weapon and a friend.

Any fool can wash himself, but every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labour, for nature will quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again.

To understand the theory which underlies all things is not sufficient. Theory is but the preparation for practice.

A man and a woman may become quite intimate in a quarter of an hour. Almost certainly will they endeavour to explain themselves to each other before many minutes have elapsed; but a man and a man will not do this, and even less so will a woman and a woman, for these are parallel lines which will never meet.

To work is nothing; the king on his throne, the priest kneeling before the Holy Altar, all people in all places had to work, but no person at all need be a servant.

Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful. Stars do not make a noise.

The inexorable compulsion of all things is towards health or destruction, life or death, and we hasten our joys or our woes to the logical extreme. It is urgent, therefore, that we be joyous if we wish to live.

When a woman speaks to a man about the love she feels for another man, she is not liked.

We are washed both on coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from the first washing nor any profit from the last.

Under all wrongdoing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows.

Man works outwardly and inwardly – after rest, he has energy; after energy, he needs repose; so, when we have given instruction for a time, we need instruction and must receive it, or the spirit faints and wisdom herself grows bitter.

There is no tragedy more woeful than the victory of hate, nor any attainment so hopelessly barren as the sterility of that achievement; for hate is finality, and finality is the greatest evil which can happen in a world of movement.

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.

In that wide struggle which we call Progress, evil is always the aggressor and the vanquished, and it is right that this should be so, for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to a fat slumber upon its cornsacks and die snoring.

A Leprecaun without a pot of gold is like a rose without perfume, a bird without a wing, or an inside without an outside.

A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust.

Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.

Men come of age at sixty, women at fifteen.