William Villers > William's Quotes

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
― W.B. Yeats

“For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.”
― W.B. Yeats, Selected Poems and Four Plays

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

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
― William Butler Yeats

“One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.”
― W. B. Yeats

“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. ”
― William Butler Yeats

“You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground