William Butler Yeats Quotes

I shook up the world, I shook up the world.

To change the world you'll need a pen.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

The world does not pay men for that which they “know”. It pays them for what they do, or induce others to do.

I remember saying, very almost jokingly, I'm going to take over the world through television, that's my plan. And I said it to my agent, and I said it to my friends, and I said it to myself.

'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!

Write your goddamned book now. The world awaits.

I was always dreaming about very powerful people. Dictators and things like that. I was always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years. Even like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years.

When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don't respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be.

I thought that if no one was going to give me a great part - and it was very difficult to break into film, obviously - then I'd write one myself.

O thou who art able to write a book which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name conqueror or city-burner.

I will make this world a better place, whether they like it or not. That’s the fun of being Queen.

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

In order to make a visualization a reality in the world of form, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

I don't expect to live forever, nor do I repine over that, but I am weak enough to want to be remembered forever. - Yet how few of those who have lived, even of those who have accomplished far more than I have, linger on in world memory for even a single century after death

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.

I get up in the morning and I put on makeup and then I say somebody else's words in someone else's clothes, and then I go home and watch TV, have a glass of whisky and go to bed. And I'm overcompensated for that. So it's insane to not use that pedestal to try and at least help someone or something that's in need.

Coming up with the bucket list is the easy part, but ticking off the list is the challenge. I love a good challenge, which is why I strongly advise everyone to come up with a bucket list. It doesn't have to contain out of this world tasks. But once you have written down the list, screw it, just do it!

I want to motivate the world, basically.

For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing.

I tend to think having an impact on the world is a lot more complicated than government.

So many people think you have to be rich and famous to really create an impact, and it's just not true. Especially when it comes to environmentalism.

I'm past patiently waitin,' I'm passionately smashin' every expectation, every action's an act of creation.

If you can't write well then your ambition to become famous in this way will be frustrated. Either that or you have to get an amanuensis who will write for you.