Robert Wilson Lynd was an Irish writer and an Irish nationalist. He was a fluent Irish speaker, and Gaelic League member.
He wrote for the New Statesman under the pseudonym Y.Y. (wise), The Northern Whig and The Daily News.
He moved in literary circles which included Jerome K. Jerome, J. B. Priestley, James Joyce and James Stephens.
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There are two sorts of curiosity – the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things.
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There are some people who want to throw their arms round you just because it’s Christmas, there are other people who want to strangle you just because it’s Christmas.
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It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one’s own suffering.
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One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.
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No doubt there are other important things in life besides conflict, but there are not many other things so inevitably interesting. The very saints interest us most when we think of them as engaged in a conflict with the Devil.
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We welcome almost any break in the monotony of things, and a man has only to murder a series of wives in a new way to become known to millions of people who have never heard of Homer.
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I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear.
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Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.
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