“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”

All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.

Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.

And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey.

Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.

We are closed in, and the key is turned / On our uncertainty.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.

And pluck till time and times are done the silver apples of the moon the golden apples of the sun.

I’m looking for the face I had, before the world was made.

Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.

Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is, A child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.

All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man’s or woman’s body.

Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.

It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is.

The Irishman sustains himself during brief periods of joy by the knowledge that tragedy is just around the corner.

I’m still terrified of flying. I really have to get drunk to fly. I’ve found that I’ve developed fears I never had before… fears of heights, claustrophobia only in cities, though, never in the country.

Let us eat, drink and satisfy our coarse appetites, but let us keep our souls sacred and apart.

I’ve drank more beer and pissed more blood and banged more women than all you numb nuts put together!

Is it the fault of wine if a fool drinks it and goes stumbling into darkness?

My parents were young and liberal and knew I was going to drink anyway, so they let me do it at home.

But for Muslims, everything that they don’t have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise.

If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

I’ve still got both kidneys, but one doesn’t work, so I have to be careful not to drink too much, even water, and I have to keep myself as healthy as possible.