But that citizens perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. – Seamus Heaney
A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups. – Seamus Heaney
Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained. – Seamus Heaney
At home in Ireland, theres a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. – Seamus Heaney
Do not waste a minute, not a second, in trying to demonstrate to others the merit of your own performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it, but you can labor steadily on to something which needs no advocate but itself. – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Letter to a Young Contributor,” The Atlantic Monthl