“The tune was sad, as the best of Ireland was, melancholy and lovely as a lover's tears.”

“Love plays its lute behind the screen —
where is a lover to listen to its tune?”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“Ireland is a land of poets and legends, of dreamers and rebels. All of these have music woven through and around them. Tunes for dancing or for weeping, for battle or for love.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

“Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

“I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

“He wanted to tear up our guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the UK.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.”

Laurie Halse Anderson book Chains

“Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sadness and sing
How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead, and how
In the grave all love shall sleep:
Love is aweary now.”

James Joyce book Chamber Music

“In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism