William Butler Yeats Quotes

Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.

William Butler Yeats

• Life
• Progress
• Journey
• Progressive

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon.

  

  Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Good
  • Smile
  • Warm

• I want to stop transforming and just start being.

  

  Ursula Burns
  • Want
  • Stop
  • Start

• The most striking development of the great depression of 1929 is a profound skepticism of the future of contemporary society among large sections of the American people.

  

  C. L. R. James
  • People
  • Great
  • American

• In occupied Iraq, the introduction of new paper money took almost a year, 20 or so Boeing 747s, the mobilisation of the U.S. military's might, three printing firms, and hundreds of trucks.

  

  Yanis Varoufakis
  • Money
  • Military
  • Year

• Only when your consciousness is totally focused on the moment you are in can you receive whatever gift, lesson, or delight that moment has to offer.

  

  Barbara De Angelis
  • You
  • Moment
  • Gift

• Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

  

  Natalie Clifford Barney
  • Mediocrity
  • Heroism

• There is no bore like a clever bore.

  

  Samuel Butler
  • Like
  • Clever
  • Bore

• It is right that we be concerned with the scientific probity of metaphysics.

  

  Gabriel Marcel
  • Science
  • Right
  • Scientific

• Any film is about heroism: the triumph of good over evil. If you look back at my films, you will see that as a recurring theme.

  

  Salman Khan
  • Good
  • Evil
  • Heroism

• We think that in Mexico, online trading of shares and financial instruments is not going to be as important as it is in the U.S. On days that there is a banking holiday in the U.S., you hardly see any movement here on the stock exchange.

  

  Carlos Slim
  • Important
  • Think
  • Financial

• I don't pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

  

  Vikram Seth
  • Me
  • Choose
  • Settings

• As a kid at school, I had a lot of really good teachers and I had a lot of really bad teachers, and I just know how much of an impact those can have on a young child. To be one of the good teachers - I want to have that kind of impact.

  

  Rachel Hurd-Wood
  • Good
  • School
  • Bad

• My life is black and white and mixed. My mother's a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy - it's not an affectation. It's also the lives of millions of people throughout the world.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • People
  • Life
  • World

• Near the end of my career, I saw things that didn't make too much sense to me when I was a kid.

  

  Nadia Comaneci
  • Career
  • End
  • Sense

• Being an actor is a good way to earn a living. And to meet fabulous people. It's great to live very comfortably. I've been lucky, I've had a lot of fun with great roles, but it is true that if I were extremely rich, I would stop and I would go to play football on a beach in the Caribbean with my children.

  

  Gary Oldman
  • People
  • Good
  • Great

• I try to get away and take my motorcycle on a ride whenever I can. I'll take my bike out before the show and just cruise.

  

  Zac Brown Band
  • Bike
  • Ride
  • Motorcycle

• The atmosphere of Catholicism in Korea is quite different to the way it is practised and perceived in Europe or the U.S.

  

  Park Chan-wook
  • Different
  • Way
  • Europe

• I guess I was always a ham, and I was anxious to try doing different things. I started doing impressions to make friends at school. I would do them during recess. Maybe some of the kids thought I was being weird, but everyone seemed to have a good time.

  

  Vesta Williams
  • Time
  • Good
  • Different

• The whole experience of doing a sitcom is... Telling jokes with such precision is really exciting, but it's also terrifying.

  

  Lea Thompson
  • Experience

• The fact that, for so many generations, ordinary, everyday Americans came out of the closet and told their family and friends about who they are has laid the foundation for public sentiment to change. They got comfortable in their own skins to be able to share themselves with family and friends. This is where social change took place.

  

  Mark Takano
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Everyday

• From the employees' standpoint, in 1935, Social Security was a big gamble. Employees would be required to participate in the program, contributing a percentage of their income for their entire adult working life.

  

  Wayne Allard
  • Life
  • Security
  • Employees

• While nothing is more uncertain than a single life, nothing is more certain than the average duration of a thousand lives.

  

  Elizur Wright
  • Life
  • Average
  • Duration

• How short our span! If you once realized how brief, you would refrain from causing any beast or man the smallest grief, the slightest pain.

  

  Angelus Silesius
  • Pain
  • Grief

• Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.

  

  William Butler Yeats
  • Life
  • Progress
  • Journey