If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
William Butler YeatsRead
From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.
Interpretation
Life is fleeting and can pass by quickly, much like a brief moment.
This quote by William Butler Yeats emphasizes the brevity of life, suggesting that from the day we are born until we die, our existence is as fleeting as the blink of an eye. It serves as a poignant reminder to appreciate the moments we have, as they can pass by faster than we realize, urging us to live fully and cherish our time.
In practice
In a motivational speech about making the most of our time.
If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
So go out and live real good and I promise you'll get beat up real bad. But, in a little while after you're dead, you'll be rotted away anyway. It's not gonna matter if you have a few scars. It will matter if you didn't live.
It is always the first and last steps that are the hardest to take. We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what's waiting for us now that we've returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place and life to the next. We try to do the best we can. There are moments like this, however, when we are neither coming nor going, and all we have to do is sit and look back on the life we have made.
Don't let the sun go down on me_x000D_ Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see_x000D_ I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free_x000D_ But losing everything is like the sun going down on me
My dear, dear girl [. . .] we can't turn back the days that have gone. We can't turn life back to the hours when our lungs were sound, our blood hot, our bodies young. We are a flash of fire--a brain, a heart, a spirit. And we are three-cents-worth of lime and iron--which we cannot get back.
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.
I can no more think of my own life without thinking of wine and wines and where they grew for me and why I drank them when I did and why I picked the grapes and where I opened the oldest procurable bottles, and all that, than I can remember living before I breathed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.