A Quote by William Butler Yeats

somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

William Butler Yeats

Quote Topics

About Birds Blank Body Desert Gaze Head Indignant Lion Man Moving Sands Shadows Shape Slow Somewhere Sun Thighs While

Quote Author

William Butler Yeats
Irish - Poet
June 13, 1865 - January 28, 1939

Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.

John Muir

A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses

John Milton

I always thought that people who live in the desert are a little crazy. It could be that the desert attracts that kind of person, or that after living there, you become that. It doesn't make much difference. But now I've done my 40 years in the desert.

James Turrell

The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.

Edward Abbey

To me, desert has the quality of darkness; none of the shapes you see in it are real or permanent. Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless, and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of its coming is lost.

Beryl Markham

How are we to live with the desert, in the desert, within the desert?

Magnus Larsson

It's a treat to see the sun rise over the desert. What am I saying? It's a treat to fire off a rocket car over the desert!

Adam Savage

I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its soltitude. I will be the desert.

Kiersten White

I've crossed these sands many times," said one of the camel drivers one night. "But the desert is so huge, and the horizons so distant, that they make a person feel small, and as if he should remain silent." The boy understood intuitively what he meant, even without ever having set foot in the desert before. Whenever he saw the sea, or a fire, he fell silent, impressed by their elemental force.

Paulo Coelho

If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert - then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man found his comfortable lodgings a prison.

Bruce Chatwin

How do you view God in a desert? There's two types of birds. There's vultures, and there's hummingbirds. One lives off dead carcasses, rotting meat. The other lives off the beautiful, sweet, nectar in a particular flower, on a particular desert plant, in the same desert. They both find what they're looking for. Do you know - take it all the way back into the Old Testament - and the Muslim and you, we actually serve the same God. Allah, to a Muslim; to us, Abba Father, God.

Brian Houston

I would go out into the desert. The desert was my teacher. I didn't know about gurus and wise people-I wasn't a reader.

Byron Katie

A cactus doesn't live in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn't killed it yet.

Hope Jahren

Talking wisely to the ignorant is throwing precious seeds to the desert sands!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

I walked in a desert. And I cried, ‘Ah, God, take me from this place!’ A voice said, ‘It is no desert.’ I cried, ‘Well, But - The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.’ A voice said, ‘It is no desert.’