William Butler Yeats Zitate

seite 4

„Keiner, der mit äußerster Geschwindigkeit läuft, hat Kopf oder Herz.“

„Doch ich bin arm, hab nur meine Träume, Die legte ich zu deinen Füßen aus, Tritt sanft, du trittst ja auf meine Träume.“

„Hinter der Maske ist immer ein lebendiges Gesicht.“

„Denke wie ein Weiser aber sprich die Sprache Deiner Mitmenschen!“

„Der Akt der Würdigung von etwas, das Größe hat, ist ein Akt der Selbstüberwindung.“

„Ein Dichter schöpft die Tragik aus seiner eigenen Seele, der Seele, die allen Menschen gleicht.“

„Jede Kultur wird durch die Suggestion eines unsichtbaren Hypnotiseurs zusammengehalten - durch künstlich erzeugte Illusion.“

„der Spruch, den Yeats sich hatte auf seinen Grabstein schreiben lassen […]: Reiter, wirf einen kalten Blick auf das Leben, auf den Tod — und reite weiter.“

“… I'm looking for the face I had, before the world was made…”

“How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

“There are no strangers, only friends you have not met yet.”

“I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams.”

“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”

“Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.”

“All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.”

“Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.”

“I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love”

“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful”

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep”

“We can only begin to live when we conceive life as
Tragedy.”

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

“If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.”

“Myself I must remake.”

“One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.”

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

“Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.”

“We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.”

“It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield”

“Hearts are not to be had as a gift, hearts are to be earned.”

“Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.”

“I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.”

“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.”

“My wretched dragon is perplexed.”

“Love comes in at the eye.”