William Butler Yeats Quotes
-
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me.
-
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.
-
Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.
-
The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . . I have always considered myself a voice of what I believe to be a greater renaissance - the revolt of the soul against the intellect.
-
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
-
Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.
-
Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.
-
All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.
-
And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place.
-
It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says there is no wisdom without leisure.
-
I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away... and the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them.
-
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .
-
Fair and foul are near of kin And fair needs foul," I cried. "My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied."
-
If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had Before the world was made.
-
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?
-
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering.
-
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His mind moves upon silence.
-
Where there is nothing, there is God.
-
One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.
-
O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet.
-
Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.
-
Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.
-
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 did not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
-
I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.