Life & People: William

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Will Durant (1885-1981)

William James Durant (/dəˈrænt/; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his 11-volume work, The Story of Civilization, which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civilizations.[1]

Quotes·Quotations by Will Durant

Happiness

¶ Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

Images

Durant in 1967

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

William Butler Yeats ( /ˈjeɪts/ YAYTS; 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honoured for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). Yeats was a very good friend of Indian Bengali poet Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the 20th century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889 and those slow-paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.

Quotes·Quotation by William Butler Yeats

Education

¶ Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats

W. Clement Stone (1902-2002)

W. Clement Stone (1902-2002)

William Clement Stone (May 4, 1902– September 3, 2002) was a businessman, philanthropist and New Thought self-help book author.

Quotes·Quotation

Attitude

¶ There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Clement_Stone

William of Wykeham

William of Wykeham (born William Longe)

William of Wykeham (/ˈwɪkəm/; 1320 or 1324 – 27 September 1404) was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. He founded New College, Oxford, and New College School in 1379, and founded Winchester College in 1382. He was also the clerk of works when much of Windsor Castle was built.[1]

Quotes·Quotations

@ Manners maketh man.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Wykeham

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

William Carlos Williams (17 September 1883 – 4 March 1963) was an American poet and physician.

Quotes·Quotations by William Carlos Williams

Summer

¶ In summer, the song sings itself.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.

Quotes·Quotations by William Cullen Bryant

August

¶ The August cloud * * * suddenly
Melts into streams of rain.
[Sella]

March

@ The stormy March has come at last,
With winds and clouds and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.
[March. Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)]

Summer

¶ The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky.
[The Strange Lady, st. 6 (1835)]

***

@ Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
[To a Waterfowl, st. 2 (1815).]

@ When April winds
Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush
Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up,
Opened in airs of June her multitude
Of golden chalices to humming-birds
And silken-wing'd insects of the sky.
[The Fountain, st. 3 (1839)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant

William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943)

William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943)

William Lyon Phelps (January 2, 1865 New Haven, Connecticut – August 21, 1943 New Haven, Connecticut) was an American author, critic and scholar. He taught the first American university course on the modern novel. He was a well-known speaker who drew large crowds. He had a radio show, wrote a daily syndicated newspaper column, lectured frequently, and published numerous popular books and articles.

Quotes·Quotations by William Lyon Phelps

Work

¶ Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lyon_Phelps

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

William Arthur Ward (1921–March 30, 1994), author of Fountains of Faith, is one of America's most quoted writers of inspirational maxims.

More than 100 articles, poems and meditations written by Ward have been published in such magazines as Reader's Digest, This Week, The Upper Room, Together, The Christian Advocate, The Adult Student, The Adult Teacher, The Christian Home, The Phi Delta Kappan, Science of Mind, The Methodist Layman, Sunshine, and Ideals.

His column Pertinent Proverbs has been featured in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and in numerous service club publications throughout the United States and abroad. He is one of the most frequently quoted writers in the pages of Quote, the international weekly digest for public speakers.

Quotes·Quotations by William Arthur Ward

Advice

¶ Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more then be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.

¶ Enthusiasm is the match that light the candle of ahievement.

http://www.imageharmony.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arthur_Ward

William Feather (1889-1981)

William Feather (1889-1981)

William A. Feather (August 25, 1889 - January 7, 1981) was an American publisher and author, based in Cleveland, Ohio.

Born in Jamestown, New York, Feather relocated with his family to Cleveland in 1903. After earning a degree from Western Reserve University in 1910, he worked as a reporter for the Cleveland Press. In 1916, he established the William Feather Magazine.

Quotes·Quotations by William Feather

Advice

¶ Beware of those who won't be bothered with details.

Commitment

¶ Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Feather

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William Faulkner (1897-1962)

William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career. He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent most of his childhood.

Faulkner is considered one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were 1930's As I Lay Dying and Light in August (1932).

Quotes·Quotations by William Faulkner

Advice

¶ Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner

William Alland (1916-1997)

William Alland (1916-1997)

William Alland (March 4, 1916 – November 11, 1997) was an American actor, producer, writer and director of science fiction and western films. He is perhaps best known for his role as reporter Jerry Thompson, who investigates the life of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welle's Citizen Kane. In his early 20s, he arrived in Manhattan and took courses at the Henry Street Settlement House, where he met Orson Welles. He also lent his voice to Welles' The War of the Worlds. Alland won a Peabody Award as producer of Doorway to Life.

Alland's role as reporter Thompson in Citizen Kane is noted most importantly because the camera never closes up on his face; in fact, for the majority of his scenes in the film, he shows his back to the camera, and whenever his face can be seen, it is always in long-shot and almost always clouded in shadow. As noted by film critic Roger Ebert on the DVD commentary of Citizen Kane, Alland once reportedly told an entire audience of people that they would probably recognize him if he were to show his back to them.

Quotes·Quotation by William Alland

William Alland as Jerry Thompson from Citizen Kane (1941)

¶ I don't think any word can explain a man's life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Alland

William James (1842-1910)

William James (1842-1910)

William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.

William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.

James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.

Quotes·Quotation

Attitude

¶ The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

¶ The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Born	7 April 1770 Wordsworth House, Cockermouth, England
Died	23 April 1850 (aged 80) Cumberland, England
Occupation	Poet
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Literary movement	Romanticism
Notable work(s)	Lyrical Ballads, Poems in Two Volumes, The Excursion

William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical poem of his early years which he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Quotes

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

Bill Gates (1955- )

Bill Gates (1955- )

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.[1]

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Quotes·Quotation by Bill Gates

Behavior

¶ We've got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.

Life

¶ Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.

Science

¶ If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.

¶ You see, antiquated ideas of kindness and generosity are simply bugs that must be programmed out of our world. And these cold, unfeeling machines will show us the way.

Season

¶ Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

Tool

¶ I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

Gates in 2023

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820~1891)

William Tecumseh Sherman (/tɪˈkʌmsə/ tih-KUM-sə; February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author.[1]

War

¶ There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.

¶ War is cruel and you cannot refine it.

Images

Wikimedia Commons

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman

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