Top 15 Yip Harburg Quotes

My heart is like the willow That bends, but never breaks. It sighs when summer jilts her, It sings when April wakes. So you, who come a-smiling With summer in your eyes, Think not that your beguiling Will take me by surprise. My heart's prepared for aching The moment you take wing. But not, my friend, for breaking While there's another spring.

And only God who makes the tree Also makes the fools like me. But only fools like me, you see, Can make a God, who makes a tree.

No matter how much I probe and prod, I cannot quite believe in God;
But oh, I hope to God that He Unswervingly believes in me.

I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about.

I am a rebel by birth. … I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest.

Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way. All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs Heard the night cry down with traitors, and the dawn shout "Up the reds!"

WHERE and WHEN Are lost in space. THERE and THEN Do not embrace. So before we disappear Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE.

No matter how high or great the throne, What sits on it is the same as your own.

As the writer of the lyric of the song ‘God’s Country’, I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy.

When the idle poor Become the idle rich You'll never know just who is who or who is which.

When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near.

The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ‘em both a little bit naive.

So I ask each weepin' willow And each brook along the way, And each lad that comes a-whistlin' Tooralay How are things in Glocca Morra This fine day?

How are things in Glocca Morra? Is that little brook still leaping there? Does it still run down to Donny cove? Through Killybegs, Kilkerry and Kildare?

On the day I was born, Said my father, said he I've an elegant legacy waiting for ye. Tis a rhyme for your lips And a song for your heart To sing it whenever the world falls apart. Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow it over the hill and stream Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow the fellow who follows a dream.