“Book learning is the thing.
You’re a lucky man.
No stock to feed, no milking times, no tillage
Nor blisters on your hand nor weather-worries”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Book learning is the thing.
You’re a lucky man.
No stock to feed, no milking times, no tillage
Nor blisters on your hand nor weather-worries”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Anything can happen, the tallest towers
Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Macoige of Lismore, for instance,
Who, when asked which attribute
Of character was best, replied
“Steadiness, for it is best
When a man has set his hand to tasks
To persevere. I have never heard
Fault found with that.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Human beings suffer.
They torture one another
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Behaviour that’s admired is the path to power among people everywhere.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“How perilous is it to choose not to love the life we’re shown?”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Whoever remains
For long here in this earthly life
Will enjoy and endure more than enough.”
~ Beowulf / Translation Seamus Heaney
“History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. . . Believe that a farther shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.”
~ Seamus Heaney
“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what’s said and what’s done.”
~ Seamus Heaney