“Literature is, to my mind, the great teaching power of the world, the ultimate creator of all values, and it is this, not only in the sacred books whose power everybody acknowledges, but by every movement of imagination in song or story or drama that height of intensity and sincerity has made literature at all. Literature must take the responsibility of its power, and keep all its freedom: it must be like the spirit and like the wind that blows where it listeth; it must claim its right to pierce through every crevice of human nature, and to descrive the relation of the soul and the heart to the facts of life and of law, and to describe that relation as it is, not as we would have it be...”

“Chance and Destiny have between them woven two-thirds of all history, and of the history of Ireland wellnigh the whole. The literature of a nation, on the other hand, is spun out of its heart. If you would know Ireland - body and soul - you must read its poems and stories. They came into existence to please nobody but the people of Ireland. Government did not make them on the one hand, nor bad seasons on the other. They are Ireland talking to herself.”

“Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once; everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power, and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing can hold them from being all that the heart desires."from a preface toGods and Fighting Menby Lady Augusta Gregory”

“God spreads the heavens above us like great wingsAnd gives a little round of deeds and days,And then come the wrecked angels and set snares,And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams,Until the heart is puffed with pride and goesHalf shuddering and half joyous from God's peace;And it was some wrecked angel, blind with tears,Who flattered Edane's heart with merry words.Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!Let me have all the freedom I have lost;Work when I will and idle when I will!Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,For I would ride with you upon the wind,Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,And dance upon the mountains like a flame. I would take the worldAnd break it into pieces in my handsTo see you smile watching it crumble away. Once a fly dancing in a beam of the sun,Or the light wind blowing out of the dawn,Could fill your heart with dreams none other knew,But now the indissoluble sacramentHas mixed your heart that was most proud and coldWith my warm heart for ever; the sun and moonMust fade and heaven be rolled up like a scrollBut your white spirit still walk by my spirit. When winter sleep is abroad my hair grows thin,My feet unsteady. When the leaves awakenMy mother carries me in her golden arms;I'll soon put on my womanhood and marryThe spirits of wood and water, but who can tellWhen I was born for the first time? The wind blows out of the gates of the day,The wind blows over the lonely of heart,And the lonely of heart is withered away;While the faeries dance in a place apart,Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and singOf a land where even the old are fair,And even the wise are merry of tongue;But I heard a reed of Coolaney say--When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,The lonely of heart is withered away.”

“I must lie down where all the ladders start, in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”

“The blessed spirits must be sought within the self which is common to all ”

“BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with merry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy head Has given the waves their melody, And made my lips and music wed, Murmuring a wizard song for thee. There the Loves a circle go, The flaming circle of our days, Gyring, spiring to and fro In those great ignorant leafy ways; Remembering all that shaken hair And how the wingèd sandals dart, Thine eyes grow full of tender care: Beloved, gaze in thine own heart. Gaze no more in the bitter glass The demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass, Or only gaze a little while; For there a fatal image grows That the stormy night receives, Roots half hidden under snows, Broken boughs and blackened leaves. For all things turn to barrenness In the dim glass the demons hold, The glass of outer weariness, Made when God slept in times of old. There, through the broken branches, go The ravens of unresting thought; Flying, crying, to and fro, Cruel claw and hungry throat, Or else they stand and sniff the wind, And shake their ragged wings; alas! Thy tender eyes grow all unkind: Gaze no more in the bitter glass.- The Two Trees”