Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

For most Americans, St. Patrick’s Day is an excuse to get trashed. As if we really needed another excuse…can we say “Super Bowl Sunday”? But for the Irish, St. Patrick’s Day actually means something – with customs and traditions, recipes and crafts, and of course history.

In honor of this GREEN day, I give you quotes from some famous Irishmen.

“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” – Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Endgame (1958)

“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” – Jonathon Swift (1667-1745) The Battle of the Books (1704)

“The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.” – James Joyce (1182-1941) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

“All government—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act—is founded on compromise and barter.” – Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

“I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood—sex and the dead.” – W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) The Letters of W .B. Yeats

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Lady Windemere’s Fan (1892)

May those who love us, love us. And those that don’t love us, may God turn their hearts, and if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles, so we’ll know them by their limping. – Irish curse

May your glass be ever full, may the roof over your head be always strong, and may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead. – Irish drinking toast

Irish Proverbs – Many quips a strong man will make

Here’s a picture of me kissing the Blarney Stone in the summer of 2001.

Related posts:

1. Neil Patrick Harris – Doogie Howser Is Gay
2. Happy Thanksgiving – I Am Thankful. Are You?
3. Happy New Year – Soon It Will Be 2007
4. Happy Presidents’ Day!
5. Happy Thanksgiving! – Norman Rockwell – Four Freedoms