St. Patrick’s Day is a time to celebrate Ireland and the Irish heritage—through music, food, Irish quotes and poetry, and more. Enjoy these ten inspiring proverbs and quotes from acclaimed Irish writers.
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- “You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace… It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.” —Frank McCourt
- “People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” —Iris Murdoch
- “And happiness…what is it? I say it is neither virtue nor pleasure, nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.” —John Butler Yeats
- “Your feet will bring you where your heart is.” —Irish Proverb
- “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”—George Moore
- “Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” —Irish Proverb
- “The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.” —Elizabeth Bowen
- “The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.” —Colum McCann
- “May neighbours respect you, trouble neglect you, the angels protect you, and Heaven accept you.” —Irish Proverb
- “A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.” —Jonathan Swift
- “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.” —George Bernard Shaw
- “May the wind always be at your back.” —Irish Proverb
- “When you fall in love, it is spring no matter when. Leaves falling make no difference, they are from another season.” —Edna O’Brien
- “There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.” —James Joyce
- “God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.”—William Butler Yeats
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