Butler/background

Famous quotes containing the words butler and/or background:

    I saw a staring virgin stand
    Where holy Dionysus died,
    And tear the heart out of his side,
    And lay the heart upon her hand
    And bear that beating heart away;
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)