William Butler Yeats Quotes (283 Quotes)

On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by.

A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul.

An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Where got I that truth Out of a medium's mouth, Out of nothing it came, Out of the forest loam, Out of dark night where lay The crowns of Nineveh

Pardon, old fathers.

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

I bear a burden that might well tryMen that do all by rule,And what can IThat am a wandering-witted foolBut pray to God that He easeMy great responsibilities

All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will.

Words alone are certain good.

For men improve with the yearsAnd yet, and yet,Is this my dream, or the truth

What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead.

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought.

Whatever flames upon the night Man's own resinous heart has fed.

That is no country for old men.

Heaven blazing into the head Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love's pleasure drives his love away, The painter's brush consumes his dreams.

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence.

And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon The golden apples of the sun.

If I make the lashes darkAnd the eyes more brightAnd the lips more scarlet,Or ask if all be rightFrom mirror after mirror,No vanity's displayedI'm looking for the face I hadBefore the world was made.

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.

The last stroke of midnight dies.All day in the one chairFrom dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have rangedIn rambling talk with an image of airVague memories, nothing but memories.

Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.

I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.

Why should not old men be mad.

For such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. r.

Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.