If war comes upon us, it will come as a thief in the night

It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.

It is my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins and it will be recorded at my expense.

If liberty is not entire it is not liberty.

We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.

For Irishmen, there is no football game to match rugby and if all our young men played rugby not only would we beat England and Wales but France and the whole lot of them put together.

Partition is after all only an old fortress of crumbled masonry - held together with the plaster of fiction.

All history is man's efforts to realise ideals.

Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

Unemployment is due to the large import of goods from Britain and other countries. The Government haven't used the powers which they have for the benefit of the country.

Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.

A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.

The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.

If our work is stimulating and rewarding, if it pushes us to grow...we become more valuable human beings.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

My word is my pride, the wisdom is weak, and that's word from the wise.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips

The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.

Maybe I’m weak for music men. Maybe I’m weak, period. But I couldn’t deny I was charmed by his arrogant, fool-ish guise.