An Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces him, never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality nor deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer at them that do, and be 'agreeable to strangers', like a good-for-nothing woman on the streets.
Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measuresby results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice.
The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.
Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore, they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because the don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give.
The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions.
It is the inefficiency and sham of ... our schools ... that save us from being dashed on the rocks of false doctrine instead of drifting down the midstream of mere ignorance.