William Ernest Henley Quotes

It is the artist's function not to copy but to synthesise: to eliminate from that gross confusion of actuality which is his raw material whatever is accidental, idle, irrelevant, and select for perpetuation that only which is appropriate and immortal.

William Ernest Henley

• Confusion
• Immortal
• Select
• Gross

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Quotes to Explore

• I fell in love with Rwanda the moment I saw those verdant, rolling hills rise up beneath the wings of the plane as we descended toward Kigali airport.

  

  Naomi Benaron
  • Moment
  • Wings
  • Plane

• Before I had my first child, I never really looked forward in anticipation to the future. As I watched my son grow and learn, I began to imagine the world this generation of children would live in. I thought of the children they would have, and of their children. I felt connected to life both before my time and beyond it. Children are our link to future generations that we will never see.

  

  Louise Hart
  • Life
  • Time
  • World

• No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity.

  

  George Benson
  • inspirational
  • Matter
  • Dignity

• When we are children, people show us so many things that we lose the profound sense of seeing... And just how could adults show us the world they have lost! They know; they think they know; they say they know...

  

  Gaston Bachelard
  • People
  • World
  • Children

• Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command.

  

  Hans Kung
  • Law
  • Church
  • Dating

• I can remain thoughtfully thoughtless, It is not an empty mind.

  

  Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar
  • Mind
  • Empty
  • Empty Mind

• Secretly, deep down, everybody on Earth believes they can write poetry, apart from the members of the Poets' Guild, who know they can't.

  

  Tom Holt
  • Earth
  • Poetry
  • Deep

• What I feel bad about is not having published very much in the last few years.

  

  Ben Nicholson
  • Bad
  • I Feel
  • Published

• We are all prisoners at one time or another in our lives, prisoners to ourselves or to the expectations of those around us. It is a burden that all people endure, that all people despise, and that few people ever learn to escape.

  

  R. A. Salvatore
  • People
  • Time
  • Expectations

• In language that's lyrical and haunting, Cheryl Strayed writes about bliss and loss, about the kind of grace that startles and transforms us in ordinary moments.

  

  Ursula Hegi
  • Writing
  • Moments
  • Grace

• I wish someone would have told me that, just because I'm a girl, I don't have to get married.

  

  Marlo Thomas
  • Girl
  • Wish
  • Married

• Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.

  

  Emile Zola
  • Literature
  • Force
  • Elude

• Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man's life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.

  

  Bahá'u'lláh
  • Life
  • World
  • Knowledge

• If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Way
  • Allowed
  • Commenced

• There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.

  

  John Tillotson
  • Men
  • Soul
  • Guilt

• Well, I don't let anyone record with me that is not a fan of mine or believe in my music. Everybody that records for me, from Bob Dylan on down to George Jones, everybody loves me and my music, and I knew they would do their best that they could do, and they did. I didn't doubt them a bit. There's some country people that I wouldn't want, which didn't record with me.

  

  Ralph Stanley
  • Music
  • Believe
  • Doubt

• I landed in Los Angeles where I've stayed, with one year-long exception when I returned to Ashland as an actor in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

  

  Kim Rhodes
  • Shakespeare
  • Exception
  • Festival

• A mortal should think mortal thoughts, not immortal thoughts.

  

  Epicharmus of Kos
  • Thoughts
  • Immortal
  • Mortal

• It is the artist's function not to copy but to synthesise: to eliminate from that gross confusion of actuality which is his raw material whatever is accidental, idle, irrelevant, and select for perpetuation that only which is appropriate and immortal.

  

  William Ernest Henley
  • Confusion
  • Immortal
  • Select