Thoughts by William Butler Yeats

May you find inspiration in these thoughts and quotes by William Butler Yeats from my large Daily Inspiration library of inspiring quotes and inspirational words.

Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire.
- William Butler Yeats

Related topics: Inspirational Government Political Mind

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;
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;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
- William Butler Yeats

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,
a possession for all time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing is more important in our national life
than the welfare of our children.
- Harry S. Truman (when signing the National School Lunch Act in 1946)

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If a man empties his purse into his head,
no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

Intellectual growth should commence at birth
and cease only at death.
- Albert Einstein

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

The highest result of education is tolerance.
- Helen Keller

Don't limit a child to your own learning,
for he was born in another time.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Education is what survives when
what has been learned has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner

The giving of love is an education in itself.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

What usually happens in the educational process is
that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed
and paralyzed so that by the time most people are mature
they have lost their innate capabilities.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
- Mark Twain

I must dedicate my life to teaching my people,
for only education would make their lot less bitter,
their latent power more strong.
- Jimmy Yen

The highest result of education is tolerance.
Long ago men fought and died for their faith;
but it took ages to teach them the other kind of courage, -
the courage to recognize the faiths of their brethren
and their rights of conscience.
- Helen Keller

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children
a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing.
- John F. Kennedy

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers,
but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.
The curriculum is so much necessary raw material,
but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant
and for the soul of the child.
- Carl Jung

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge
and the dissemination of truth.
- John F. Kennedy

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes
is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun.
To accuse neither oneself nor others
shows that one's education is complete.
- Epictetus

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy,
the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child.
The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
- Emma Goldman

There comes a time in every man's education
when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance,
that imitation is suicide,
that he must take himself for better or for worse as his portion.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most important outcome of education
is to help students become independent of formal education.
- Paul E. Gray

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
- Albert Einstein

The object of education is to prepare the young
to educate themselves throughout their lives.
- Robert M. Hutchins

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money,
than circumstances, than failures, than success,
than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill.
It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day
regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past ...
we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the string we have,
and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me
and 90 percent how I react to it.
And so it is with you ...
we are in charge of our attitudes.
- Charles Swindoll

Education is a method whereby
one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
- Laurence J. Peter

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

A wise man hears one word and understands two.
- Yiddish Proverb

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

Everyone hears what you say.
Friends listen to what you say.
Best friends listen to what you don't say.
- Anonymous

Footprints in the sands of time...
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Why are you going there?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Choose to See Beauty and Joy:
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what you stand for,
where you want to go and why you want to get there.
- Kofi Annan

If I am a legend, then why am I so lonely?
- Judy Garland

There is always the danger that we may
just do the work for the sake of the work.
This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in -
that we do it to God, to Christ,
and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
- Mother Teresa

I can see, and that is why I can be happy,
in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden.
I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.
- Helen Keller

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Urgent? Why?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We may have our private opinions
but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

There are a hundred valid reasons why something can't be done,
but only one reason, Commitment, why it can.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were and say, Why not
- George Bernard Shaw

Always listen to the experts.
They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
- Robert Heinlein

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That is why it is called Present.
- Anonymous

Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why live?
Adding one to my count of days, or postponing
a feared death by another day do not inspire me.
I live to experience something new each day -
to learn something new, meet a new friend,
bring joy into someone's life,
feel the wind newly on my skin,
touch a new fear, a new anger,
and with focused intent and good fortune,
find an ample measure of my own joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is change. Without change, there is no life.
Why then do we so fight against change?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why not go out on a limb?
Isn't that where the fruit is?
- Mark Twain

Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve
some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.
- Aristophanes

WHY do you care what THEY think?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I can't understand why people
are frightened by new ideas.
I'm frightened of old ones.
- John Cage

"Be Prepared."
"Be prepared for what?"
"Why, for any old thing."
- Robert Baden-Powell,
the founder of Scouting.
[as quoted in the Boy Scout Handbook]

There are those that look at things
the way they are, and ask "Why?"
I dream of things that never were, and ask "Why not?"
- Robert F. Kennedy paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw

The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am a miracle, and that's why I'm ME.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is serious? Why?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast.
- Lewis Carroll

Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask "Why me?"
Then a voice answers "Nothing personal,
your name just happened to come up. -
- Charlie Brown, in Charles M. Schulz' cartoon Peanuts

Everyone believes that their beliefs are the right ones -
that is why they are called beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director? I want to see him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Do you ever question why our educational system
teaches competition rather than cooperation?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Ask why this task is on your to-do list.
Consider discarding those items to which
you are not truly committed.
For the tasks which do speak
to the longings of your own heart,
begin now, today, this moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.
That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.
- Emily Kimbrough

For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something,
some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we?
If this is a chance to find out
even just a little part of that answer...
I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?
- the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997)

Being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other.
To catch each other when we falter.
To encourage each other when we lose heart.
Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone.
- Hilary Clinton

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

I make it a policy to try never to
make a complete idiot of myself twice in the same way.
After all, there's always all kinds of new ways
to make a complete idiot of myself.
Why repeat the old ones?
- Margot Dalton

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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