Inspirational Quotes by Seamus Heaney (Irish Poet, Playwright)

Seamus Justin Heaney (1939–2013) was an Irish poet. This 1995 Nobel laureate has been widely acclaimed as a major poet of the twentieth century.

Born in County Derry in Northern Ireland, Heaney took Irish citizenship in 1972. In the 1960s, he began publishing poems in magazines—he wrote about pastures of his youth and recollections of everyday objects such as potatoes and bullfrogs. He received a letter from the editor of Faber & Faber, who had previously published some well-known works of literature including those of T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and Robert Lowell, asking if he’d like to publish his volume of poems. That first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966,) made his name as a poet.

What distinguished Heaney’s poetry was its creativity—Heaney transformed the personal, local, and, at times, the unimaginable present into timeless and universal art. His other notable works include North (1975,) The Haw Lantern (1987,) The Spirit Level (1996,) Electric Light (2001,) and District and Circle (2006.)

Heaney also published the highly acclaimed translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf (1999.) Heaney’s adaptation was inspired by the Derry dialect of his youth; it reconfirmed his position in the pantheon of Irish poets.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Seamus Heaney

Fate goes ever as fate must.
—Seamus Heaney

There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you.
—Seamus Heaney

Behaviour that’s admired is the path to power among people everywhere.
—Seamus Heaney

If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.
—Seamus Heaney

Only the very stupid or the very deprived can any longer help knowing that the documents of civilization have been written in blood and tears, blood and tears no less real for being very remote.
—Seamus Heaney

The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.
—Seamus Heaney

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what’s said and what’s done.
—Seamus Heaney

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power.
—Seamus Heaney

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Inspirational Quotes by Seamus Heaney (Irish Poet, Playwright)

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