William Butler Yeats Quotes (283 Quotes)


    The Government does not intend these things to happen, the Commission on whose report the Bill was founded did not intend these things to happen, but in legislation intention is nothing, and the letter of the law everything, and no government has the

    Swift has sailed into his rest Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveler he Served human liberty.

    Life moves out of a red flare of dreams into a common light of common hours, until old age bring the red flare again.

    Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.

    Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.


    It is not permitted to a man who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another.

    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart's core.

    Why, what could she have done, being what she is Was there another Troy for her to burn.

    I prayfor fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.

    Hands, do what you're bid Bring the balloon of the mind That bellies and drags in the wind Into its narrow shed.




    TOIL and grow rich, what's that but to lie with a foul witch and after, drained dry, to be brought to the chamber where lies one long sought with despair.


    And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight.

    Civilization is hoped together, brought under a rule, under the semblance of peace by manifold illusion, but Man's life is thought, and he, despite his terror, cannot cease, ravening through century after century ravening, raging and uprooting, that

    But is there any comfort to be found Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say.

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

    Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.


    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.

    My fiftieth year had come and gone,I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,And open book and empty cupOn the marble table-top.



    But what is Whiggery A leveling, rancorous, rational sort of mind That never looked out of the eye of a saint Or out of a drunkard's eye.

    In Imagination only we find a Human Faculty that touches nature at one side, and spirit on the other. Imagination may be described as that which is sent bringing spirit to nature, entering into nature, and seemingly losing its spirit, that nature being revealed as symbol may lose the power to delude.


    Because I am mad about womenI am mad about the hills,Said that wild old wicked manWho travels where God wills. . . .



    I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

    I think it better that at times like theseWe poets keep our mouths shut, for in truthWe have no gift to set a statesman rightHe's had enough of meddling who can pleaseA young girl in the indolence of her youthOr an old man upon a winter's night.

    Though leaves are many, the root is one Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.


    Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!

    Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

    I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

    Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes. The Wild Swans at Coole 1919. The Cat and the Moon.


    Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.

    You have to die because no soul has passedThe heavenly threshold since you have opened school,But grass grows there, and rust upon the hingeAnd they are lonely that must keep the watch.

    The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the lonely of heart, And the lonely of heart is withered away

    The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.



    Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon...

    Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

    Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways.

    To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.


    Related Authors


    Ralph Waldo Emerson - Horace - William Somerville - Thomas Moore - Thomas Gray - Hesiod - Geoffrey Chaucer - Elizabeth Bishop - Edward Young - Edmund Spenser


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