Divine nature gave the fields, human art built the cities.

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  I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.

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  Out of constables we have made grandees, idiots have shared out the honours, thieves are making rich men for us, dark souls have called themselves patriots.

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  Every generation, no doubt, believes itself called to remake the world. Mine knows that it will not remake it.

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  The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.

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  Capitalism is unequally distributed wealth, and socialism is equally distributed poverty. But the saying is not quite right, for Bolshevism distributes even poverty unequally.

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  It would be better for you, young man, not to write. Writing is what brought you to jail. Had you been illiterate, you might today be a decent, honest man and perhaps a respected citizen, but as it is you drag yourself from jail to jail like a gambler.

All quotes