Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;

A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.


William Butler Yeats

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That William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business.
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground.
The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed.
The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff...
The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn.
Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words.
Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads
Let love through good deeds show.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness.
That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti...
To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to...
Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of...
Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi...
A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d...
If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool.
Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ...
Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.
Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.
The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless.
Friendship is love with understanding.
So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius
Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan.
Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment.
Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.
An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation
To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li...
Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind
If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts.
We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.
People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example.
Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good...
The guilty catch themselves.
Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into.
If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price.
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.
Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.
Hate pollutes the mind.
If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves.
To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle.
Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.
A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t...
"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary.
Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy.
It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t...
Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ...
Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.
Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor.
"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i...
It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice.
Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words.
Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason.
Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.
Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u...
Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are.
One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ...
No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous.
Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break.
The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re...
Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand.
Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea
Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about...
Age withers only the outside.
Where ambition ends happiness begins.
The best answer to answer to anger is silence.
The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry.
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
People who know the least always argue the most.
If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them.
What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes
The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe.
He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance
It is better to live richly than to die rich.
On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor...
Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them.
Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct...
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.
Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them
Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.
Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re...
Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind.
Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a...
There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.

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Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
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Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
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Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.
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How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
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Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.
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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
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Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
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There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
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How can we know the dancer from the dance?
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Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.
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I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
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Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
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I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him...
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Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric; of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry.
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People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the...
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Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart. -William Butler Yeats.
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The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time
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And say my glory was I had such friends.
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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.
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A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.
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Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and ...
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Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered...
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I call on those that call me son,Grandson, or great-grandson,On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great...
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When two close kindred meetWhat better than call a dance?
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We were the last romantics -- chose for themeTraditional sanctity and loveliness.
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Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.
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Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
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Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's mor...
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Who stole your wits awayAnd where are they gone?
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There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
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Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.
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Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of ...
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Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
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Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of ...
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Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.
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If I make the lashes darkAnd the eyes more brightAnd the lips more scarlet,Or ask if all be rightFro...
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Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy whe...
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If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
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I have no question:It is enough, I know what fixed the stationOf star and cloud.And knowing all, I c...
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Considering that, all hatred driven hence,The soul recovers radical innocenceAnd learns at last that...
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My fiftieth year had come and gone,I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,And open book and ...
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Test every work of intellect or faith,And everything that your own hands have wroughtAnd call those ...
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Nobody running at full speed has either a head or a heart.
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It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments.
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One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a man's eye...
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Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance ...
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Time drops in decay,Like a candle burnt out,And the mountains and woodsHave their day, have their da...
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You think it horrible that lust and rageShould dance attendance upon my old age;They were not such a...
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Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim ...
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I hear the wind a blowI hear the grass a grow,And all that I know, I know.But I will not speak, I wi...
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Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on.
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Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.
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Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that ...
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TOIL and grow rich, what's that but to lie with a foul witch and after, drained dry, to be brought t...
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You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my ...
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She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;But I, being young and foolish, with her w...
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Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he wil...
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Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult
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Those images that yetFresh images beget,That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
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Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave
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From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.
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Now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, and wha...
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An intellectual hatred is the worst.
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I think it better that at times like theseWe poets keep our mouths shut, for in truthWe have no gift...
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What shall I do for pretty girlsNow my old bawd is dead?
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I bear a burden that might well tryMen that do all by rule,And what can IThat am a wandering-witted ...
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A woman can be proud and stiffWhen on love intent;But Love has pitched his mansion inThe place of ex...
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But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas?
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Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves among silence
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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing...
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You have to die because no soul has passedThe heavenly threshold since you have opened school,But gr...
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That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another's arms, birds in the trees --Those dying gen...
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An intellectual hatred is the worst,So let her think opinions are accursed.
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Of conflicts with others we make retorica, of conflicts with ourselves poetry
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I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the ha...
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The ghost of Roger Casement is beating on the door.
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Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,Nor public men, nor cheering crowds.
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Time's bitter flood will rise,Your beauty perish and be lostFor all eyes but these eyes.
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I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed t...
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A mermaid found a swimming lad,Picked him for her own,Pressed her body to his body,Laughed; and plun...
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The hour of the waning of love has beset us,And weary and worn are our sad souls now;Let us part, er...
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This melancholy London- I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through...
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I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and to keep them in...
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Think where mans glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.
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Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to ...
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The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . .
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Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before w...
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I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart's core.
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I'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts.
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There's more enterpriseIn walking naked.
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Farewell -- farewell,For I am weary of the weight of time.
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When we are young we long to tread a way none have trod before
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Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mo...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gif...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
That William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
One had a lovely face, and two or three had charm, but charm and face were in vain. Because the moun...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opini...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
La...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Miss Flora McFlimsey of Madison Square, Has made three separate journeys to Paris, And her fat...
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare, When at the same moment she had on a dress Whi...
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the ...
WILLIAM FRANCIS BUTLER
Doubtless God could have made a better berry (than the strawberry), but doubtless God never did
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare,When at the same moment she had on a dressWhich cost ...
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
Really and truly -- I've nothing to wear.
WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER