John Philpot Curran

"I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost." - A retort to a unionist MP who spoke of how he shuddered each time he passed the now-empty Parliament House, Dublin. The MP had voted in favour of the Act of Union which abolished the Irish Parliament."

"In this administration, a place can be found for every bad man."

"His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin."

"Twenty four millions of people have burst their chains, and on the altar erected by despotism for public slavery, have enthroned the image of public liberty" – Speaking of the French Revolution, 4 February 1790."

"Assassinate me you may; intimidate me you cannot."

"No matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted on the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains which burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation." – (Currans speech in defence of James Somersett, a Jamaican slave who declared his freedom upon being brought to Britain [where slavery was banned] by his master; quoted extensively by US abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Toms Cabin, Chapter 37. Frederick Douglass always recited this speech on stage when playing Curran.)"

"My dear doctor, I am surprised to hear you say that I am coughing very badly, as I have been practising all night."

"Judge: (whose wig was awry, to Curran) Curran, do you see anything ridiculous in this wig?"

"When I cant talk sense, I talk metaphor."

"Everything I see disgusts and depresses me: I look back at the streaming of blood for so many years, and everything everywhere relapsed into its former degradation – France rechained, Spain again saddled for the priests, and Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider." – Written in a letter, after the exile of Napoleon Bonaparte."

"O Erin how sweetly thy green bosom rises,"

"If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking,"