In this quote by poet William Butler Yeats, he reflects on the idea that excessive sacrifice or enduring hardship can desensitize a person, causing them to lose their empathy and compassion. The metaphor of "making a stone of a heart" conveys the hardening effect that prolonged sacrifices can have on a person's emotional well-being. Yeats suggests that there is a limit to how much sacrifice one can endure before it starts to erode their humanity. This quote serves as a reminder to maintain a balance between selflessness and self-care in order to preserve one's emotional sensitivity and connection to others.
“Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.Oh, when may it suffice?”
“Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.”
“One that is ever kind said yesterday:'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,And little shadows come about her eyes;Time can but make it easier to be wiseThough now it seems impossible, and soAll that you need is patience.'Heart cries, 'No,I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.Time can but make her beauty over again:Because of that great nobleness of hersThe fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,Burns but more clearly. O she had not these waysWhen all the wild Summer was in her gaze.' Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,You'd know the folly of being comforted!”
“They must go out of the theatre with the strength they live by strengthened from looking upon some passion that could, whatever its chosen way of life, strike down an enemy, fill a long stocking with money or move a girl's heart.”
“Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earnedBy those who are not entirely beautiful.”
“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”