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George William Russell Quotes
131 Sourced Quotes
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What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago,
For a dream-shaft pierced it through
From the Unknown Archer's bow.
George William Russell
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In ancient shadows and twilights
Where childhood had strayed,
The world's great sorrows were born
And its heroes were made.
In the lost boyhood of Judas
Christ was betrayed.
George William Russell
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Only in the self we grope
To the misty end of time:
Truth has put an end to hope.
What of all the heart to love?
Sadder than for will or soul,
No light lured it on above;
Love has found itself the whole.
The Hunter Also known as "Refuge".
George William Russell
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In day from some titanic past it seems
As if a thread divine of memory runs;
Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
Or yet were stars and suns.
George William Russell
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Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me — in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long
Flying traces; some there be
Seek thee only for a song:
I to lose myself in thee.
Symbolism
George William Russell
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I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?
George William Russell
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Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls
In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,
From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls
Into the vast of God.
George William Russell
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This mood hath known all beauty for it sees
O'erwhelmed majesties
In these pale forms, and kingly crowns of gold
On brows no longer bold,
And through the shadowy terrors of their hell
The love for which they fell,
And how desire which cast them in the deep
Called God too from his sleep.
George William Russell
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Aye, after victory, the crown;
Yet through the fight no word of cheer;
And what would win and what go down
No word could help, no light make clear.
A thousand ages onward led
Their joys and sorrows to that hour;
No wisdom weighed, no word was said,
For only what we were had power.
The Virgin Mother
George William Russell
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Our true hearts are forever lonely:
A wistfulness is in our thought:
Our lights are like the dawns which only
Seem bright to us and yet are not.
George William Russell
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I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness and ease and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
Dropping from twilight trees.
Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
Through other hearts than mine.
Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains.
The Nuts of Knowledge
George William Russell
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Sirs, I address this warning to you, the aristocracy of industry in this city, because, like all aristocracies, you tend to grow blind in long authority, and to be unaware that you and your class and its every action are being considered and judged day by day by those who have power to shake or overturn the whole social order, and whose restlessness in poverty today is making our industrial civilisation stir like a quaking bog. You do not seem to realise that your assumption that you are answerable to yourselves alone for your actions in the industries you control is one that becomes less and less tolerable in a world so crowded with necessitous life.
George William Russell
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The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream.
George William Russell
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I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill
The dumb brown lips of earth with mystery,
Make them reveal or hide the god. I breathe
A deeper pity than all love, myself
Mother of all, but without hands to heal:
Too vast and vague, they know me not.
George William Russell
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We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.
George William Russell
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Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:
The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid,
One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide,
Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side.
Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.
Alter Ego
George William Russell
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He felt an inner secret joy!
A spirit of unfettered will
Through light and darkness moving still
Within the All to find its own,
To be immortal and alone.
The Vesture of the Soul
George William Russell
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Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,
And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.
George William Russell
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I pitied one whose tattered dress
Was patched, and stained with dust and rain;
He smiled on me; I could not guess
The viewless spirit's wide domain.
George William Russell
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A shaft of fire that falls like dew,
And melts and maddens all my blood,
From out thy spirit flashes through
The burning glass of womanhood.
George William Russell
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Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast
Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim;
Fire on the altar of the hills at last
Burns on the shadowy rim.
Moments that holds all moments; white upon
The verge it trembles; then like mists of flowers
Break from the fairy fountain of the dawn
The hues of many hours.
George William Russell
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I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar
Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star.
George William Russell
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Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.
George William Russell
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Who would think this quiet breather
From the world had taken flight?
Yet within the form we see there
Wakes the golden King to-night.
George William Russell
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All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
'Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time.
George William Russell
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Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
George William Russell
Creative Commons
Born:
April 10, 1867
Died:
July 17, 1935
(aged 68)
Bio:
George William Russell who wrote with the pseudonym Æ was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, artistic painter and Irish nationalist.
Most used words:
beauty
heart
light
love
spirit
dream
earth
life
time
eyes
day
fire
deep
night
starry
George William Russell on Wikipedia
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