WIST Quotations

Joyce, James -- “Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages,” lecture, Università Popolare, Trieste (27 Apr 1907)

Dave — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:32:32 +0000

I confess that I do not see what good it does to fulminate against the English tyranny while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
“Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages,” lecture, Università Popolare, Trieste (27 Apr 1907)

Joyce, James -- “The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran: England’s Safety Valve in Case of War,” Piccolo della Sera (5 Sep 1912)

Dave — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:31:54 +0000

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honoured by posterity because he was the last to discover America.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
“The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran: England’s Safety Valve in Case of War,” Piccolo della Sera (5 Sep 1912)

Joyce, James -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5 (1916)

Dave — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:29:13 +0000

It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5 (1916)
(Source)

Joyce, James -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5 (1916)

Dave — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 12:09:11 +0000

— Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?
— I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5 (1916)
(Source)

Joyce, James -- In Arthur Power, Conversations with James Joyce (1974)

Dave — Tue, 04 May 2021 18:02:41 +0000

In realism you get down to facts on which the world is based; that sudden reality which smashes romanticism into a pulp. What makes most people’s lives unhappy is some disappointed romanticism, some unrealizable or misconceived ideal. In fact you may say that idealism is the ruin of man, and if we lived down to fact, as primitive man had to do, we would be better off. That is what we were made for. Nature is quite unromantic. It is we who put romance into her, which is a false attitude, an egotism, absurd like all egotism.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
In Arthur Power, Conversations with James Joyce (1974)

Joyce, James -- Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 Nov 1902)

Dave — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 20:48:56 +0000

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 Nov 1902)

Joyce, James -- Letter to his brother, Stanislaus Joyce (19 Feb 1907)

Dave — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:24:52 +0000

My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions.

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish writer, poet
Letter to his brother, Stanislaus Joyce (19 Feb 1907)