Famous Quotes by William Butler Yeats
- Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent... More
- It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class.... I am of the... More
- I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind. More
- The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart,... More
- But even at the starting post, all sleek and new,
I saw the wildness in her and I... More
- Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On... More
- I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies More
- Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked. More
- I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown. More
- The angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead. More
- No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound
Wound, wound, and she... More
- That crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in... More
- I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I... More
- I said: “A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s... More
- “To be born woman is to know—
Although they do not talk of it at school—
That we... More
- A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our... More
- Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when... More
- I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, More
- When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh... More
- Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that... More
- A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What... More
- Who can distinguish darkness from the soul? More
- I am content to live it all again,
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the... More
- She was more beautiful than thy first love,
But now lies under boards. More
- I dreamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand;
And they had... More
- Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for... More
- Come swish around my pretty punk
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober... More
- A drunkard is a dead man
And all dead men are drunk. More
- I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. More
- Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better,... More
- We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all... More
- Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a... More
- Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead, More
- Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant. More
- Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had... More
- But here’s a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness... More
- O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What’s not for their... More
- He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to... More
- Such thought such though have I that hold it tight
Till meditation master all its... More
- He loved strange thought
And knew that sweet extremity of pride
That’s called platonic... More
- I have mummy truths to tell
Whereat the living mock,
Though not for sober ear,
For... More
- Two thoughts were so mixed up I could not tell
Whether of her or God he thought the... More
- He had much industry at setting out,
Much boisterous courage, before loneliness
Had... More
- Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell
And many a lesser bell sound through the... More
- I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one... More
- All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman’s face, or... More
- What brought them there so far from their home,
Cuchulain that fought night long with the... More
- What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower?
And all alone comes riding there
The King... More
- While on that old grey stone I sat
Under the old wind-broken tree,
I knew that One is... More
- Believing every word I said,
I praised her body and her mind
Till pride had made her eyes... More
- The Muse is mute when public men
Applaud a modern throne. More
- That waxen seal, that signature.
For things like these what decent man
Would keep his... More
- I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, More
- For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler’s heritage— More
- Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat? More
- O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O... More
- Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That... More
- —the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man. More
- Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow. More
- My temptation is quiet.
Here at life’s end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill... More
- Grant me an old man’s frenzy.
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that... More
- Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Nor heavy knitting of the brow
Bred that fierce tooth... More
- May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from other shades... More
- See how the sacred old flamingoes come,
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged... More
- What made the drapery glisten so?
Not a man but Delacroix. More
- What made the ceiling waterproof?
Landor’s tarpaulin on the roof. More
- A sweetheart from another life floats there
As though she had been forced to linger
From... More
- The elaborate star-light throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies... More
- We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. More
- Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love; More
- I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of... More
- This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not... More
- White woman with numberless dreams,
I bring you my passionate rhyme. More
- to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief. More
- In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are... More
- Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child... More
- And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad... More
- An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed. More
- And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious; More
- How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born? More
- O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place. More
- May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or... More
- It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of... More
- Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns... More
- Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, not turn... More
- You have lacked articulate speech
To tell Your simplest want, and known,
Wailing upon a... More
- God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting... More
- I pray for fashion’s word is out
And prayer comes round again
That I may seem, though I... More
- should some limb of the devil
Destroy the view by cutting down an ash
That shades the... More
- Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content. More
- I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts,... More
- Though I have many words,
What woman’s satisfied,
I am no longer faint
Because at... More
- I thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the... More
- My mother dandled me and sang,
“How young it is, how young!”
And made a golden... More
- St Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way his finger smelt. More
- Greater glory in the sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on... More
- We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for... More
- There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the... More
- She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees
The long flowing line,
Have... More
- Is there a bridle for this Proteus
That turns and changes like his draughty seas?
Or is... More
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