One might say, for example, that a patient has a kind of St Vitus's dance; a kind of dropsy; a read more

One might say, for example, that a patient has a kind of St Vitus's dance; a kind of dropsy; a kind of nerve fever; a kind of ague. One would never say, however (to end once and for all the confusion of these names) "He has St. Vitus's dance," "He has nerve fever," "He has dropsy," "He has ague," since there simply are not any fixed, unchanging diseases to be known by such names.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and read more

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs read more

When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin.

It is extraordinary how the house and the simplest possessions of someone who has been left become so quickly sordid. read more

It is extraordinary how the house and the simplest possessions of someone who has been left become so quickly sordid. Even the stain on the coffee cup seems not coffee but the physical manifestation of one's inner stain, the fatal blot that from the beginning had marked one for ultimate aloneness.

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, read more

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

Life is weaker than death, and death is weaker than love.

Life is weaker than death, and death is weaker than love.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than anything I have ever done; it is a far, read more

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than anything I have ever done; it is a far, far, better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Hell is paved with good Samaritans.

Hell is paved with good Samaritans.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.