William Butler Yeats Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from William Butler Yeats on Wise Famous Quotes.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart ...
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart ...
I have no question: It is enough, I know what fixed the station Of star and cloud. And knowing all, I cry ...
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.
Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion ...
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion ...
Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.
The women take so little stock
In what I do or say
They'd sooner leave their cosseting
To hear a jackass bray ...
In what I do or say
They'd sooner leave their cosseting
To hear a jackass bray ...
My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.
The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler.
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.
A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
But stories that live longest
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country
And Parnell loved his lass.
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country
And Parnell loved his lass.
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
Time can but make it easier to be wise / Though now it seems impossible, and so / All that you need is patience.
I know, although when looks meet
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone ...
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone ...
I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.
True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.
The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.
For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?
I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.
I would that I were an old beggar
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my lady
Go gallivanting by.
Rolling a blind pearl eye,
For he cannot see my lady
Go gallivanting by.
Maybe the bride-bed brings despair,
For each an imagined image brings
And finds a real image there ...
For each an imagined image brings
And finds a real image there ...
Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land;
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand ...
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand ...
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
Sweetheart, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbor knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?
All know the man their neighbor knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?
There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind ...
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind ...
All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one.
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one.
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
Come swish around my pretty punk
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.
Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath,
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night ...
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath,
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night ...
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.
I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.
The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.
I had a chair at every hearth,
When no one turned to see,
With 'Look at that old fellow there,
'And who may he be?
When no one turned to see,
With 'Look at that old fellow there,
'And who may he be?
The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song After great cathedral gong.
Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit ...
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit ...
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged / In rambling talk with an image of air: / Vague memories, nothing but memories.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.