35 Quotes by George William Russell

The victors in great wars have always been spiritually defeated by the conquered.

We have control over the work of our hands, but little over the working of the soul. But yet we must yield to it, for without it we have nothing.

Nothing exasperates the spirit in man more than power which seems unconquerable and which makes impotent all protest.

Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.

We realise that natural aptitudes are not interchangeable, and each person must, of biological or spiritual necessity, practise the art for which he is fitted.

People tell me that the countryside must always be stupid and backward, and I get angry, as if it were said that only townspeople had immortal souls, and that it was only in the city that the flame of divinity breathed into the first men had an unobscured glow.

We are tired who follow after fantasy and truth that flies: You with only look and laughter stain our hearts with richest dyes.

There is a law in human nature which draws us to like what we passionately condemn.

A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.