Quotes to inspire and reflect

Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old.

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there’s more enterprise In walking naked.

Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

Pardon, old fathers.

Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.

In dreams begins responsibility. 4

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.

The fascination of what’s difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.

Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

The friends that have it I do wrong When ever I remake a song Should know what issue is at stake, It is myself that I remake.

I heard the old, old men say, “All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.”

Since Adam’s fall but needs much laboring.

I said, “A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones.”

For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind delight.

O heart! O heart! if she’d but turn her head, You’d know the folly of being comforted.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with gold and silver light.

And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the plowman, splashing the wintry mold, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight.

Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

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.

When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book. 3

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.

A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

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.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Gray Truth is now her painted toy.

I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same.

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than oak, and ash, and thorn.

Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again! There’s no discharge in the war!

Who hath desired the sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded.

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges— Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

The flanneled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.