Have you made greatness your companion, Although it be for children that you sigh: These are the clouds about the fallen sun, The majesty that shuts his burning eye.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Pursuing greatness often means mourning the lost potential or fading glory of something else.
- In plain terms
- Even if you seek greatness for kids, you are watching the sun set with sad eyes.
- What can you take from it?
- Greatness can come with sadness over what is lost or left behind.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is greatness worth the cost?
- What have you lost to succeed?
Another view
It frames ambition as inherently tragic which may discourage positive goals.
More from William Butler Yeats
You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the like by these; But was there ever a dog that praised h…
Permalink to quote #59 O love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the sh…
Permalink to quote #61 O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause Being for a woman's sake. Enough if the work has seemed, So did she yo…
Permalink to quote #58
Related quotes
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: - Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visa…
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley quote #66 The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.
Rutherford B. HayesRutherford B. Hayes quote #1 To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.
Ernest RenanErnest Renan quote #1