"The Second Coming, 1921"

William Butler Yeats Literature See all quotes by William Butler Yeats →

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“Do what you will. I do not understand stops. I write my work so completely for the ear that I feel helpless when I have to measure pauses by stops & commas.”

“The friends that have it I do wrongWhenever I remake a songShould know what issue is at stake,It is myself that I remake.”

“The years like great black oxen tread the world,And God the herdsman goads them on behind,And I am broken by their passing feet.”

“You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.”

“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.”

“Alphabetical Listing of Poems by Yeats”

Resonant Thoughts

"Once upon a time she had suffered under the illusion that if she only exerted herself hard enough, the world would change. Now she knew better."

— Kim Stanley Robinson

Science1952

#time

"Sometimes the things that come out of my mouth are mortifying."

— Natasha Lyonne

Entertainment1979

#time

"What worries me at the moment is President Trump and many in his administration are using the same kind of language about winnable bloody-nose strike against North Korea without realizing the conseque…"

— Mick Jackson (director)

Entertainment1943

#time

"This wasn’t “next time,” and there would be no more of that; there was only this time, this sole finite time of whose direction and outcome Jeff knew absolutely nothing. He would not waste, not take f…"

— Ken Grimwood

Literature1944–2003

#time