Quote

In the middle classes the gifted son of a family is always the poorest -- usually a writer or artist with no sense for speculation -- and in a family of peasants, where the average comfort is just over penury, the gifted son sinks also, and is soon a tramp on the roadside.

John Millington Synge

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Millington Synge
Age: 37 †
Born: 1871
Born: April 16
Died: 1909
Died: March 24
Librettist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
J. M. Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge
Artist
Average
Roadside
Sense
Soon
Sinks
Also
Comfort
Peasants
Always
Usually
Poorest
Writer
Speculation
Middle
Gifted
Penury
Class
Classes
Tramp
Family
Son
Tramps

More quotes by John Millington Synge

Image
A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.
John Millington Synge
Image
A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, for he will be going out on a day when he shouldn't.
John Millington Synge
Image
They're cheering a young lad, the champion playboy of the Western World.
John Millington Synge
Image
When I was writing The Shadow of the Glen I got more aid than any learning could have given me from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servent girls in the kitchen.
John Millington Synge
Image
I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds, The gray and wintry sides of many glens, And did but half remember human words, In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.
John Millington Synge
Image
Drink a health to the wonders of the western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers, with the jobbing jockies parching peelers, and the juries fill their stomachs selling judgments of the English law.
John Millington Synge
Image
At first I threw my weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a boot, and was a good deal bruised, but after a few hours I learned the natural walk of man, and could follow my guide in any portion of the island.
John Millington Synge
Image
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.
John Millington Synge
Image
The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything.
John Millington Synge
Image
In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple.
John Millington Synge
Image
Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister, cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her.
John Millington Synge
Image
What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
John Millington Synge
Image
A low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the movement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost sight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the rigging, and a small circle of foam.
John Millington Synge
Image
The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind.
John Millington Synge
Image
It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely, and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.
John Millington Synge