A Quote by William Butler Yeats

Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk
Poet and sculptor, do the work, / Nor let the modish painter shirk
Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us; but the actor - his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.
There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.
The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet.
The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.
It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.
Man offers himself to God. He stands before Him like the canvas before the painter or the marble before the sculptor. At the same time he asks for His grace, expresses his needs and those of his brothers in suffering. Such a type of prayer demands complete renovation. The modest, the ignorant, and the poor are more capable of this self-denial than the rich and the intellectual.
When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected - and this life with which men are in love is represented in a thousand forms.
I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.
Every really able man, in whatever direction he works - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter - if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be. What is this Better, this flying Ideal, but the perpetual promise of his Creator?
The painter, sculptor, writer, and musician are protected by law. So are inventors. But the chef has absolutely no redress for plagiarism on his work; on the contrary, the more the latter is liked and appreciated, the more will people clamour for his recipes.
In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify life and defend it. He must be a citizen first and foremost, so that his art might consciously extol human life and lead man to a radiant future.
There are two devices which can help the sculptor to judge his work: one is not to see it for a while. The other... is to look at his work through spectacles which will change its color and magnify or diminish it, so as to disguise it somehow to his eye, and make it look as though it were the work of another.
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it be after his heart. But the intelligent man is he who can convert every work into one that suits his taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent with it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great.
Every man is the painter and the sculptor of his own life.
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