William Butler Yeats Quotes
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I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's self.
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Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / His mind moves upon silence.
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Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.
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I knew that I had seen, had seen at last That girl my unremembering nights hold fast Or else my dreams that fly If I should rub an eye, And yet in flying fling into my meat A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat.
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O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet.
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O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
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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.
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Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.
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All dreams of the soul End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.
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I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
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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?
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Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.
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Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.
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From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye.
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I would that I were an old beggar Rolling a blind pearl eye, For he cannot see my lady Go gallivanting by.
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Not a man alive has so much luck that he can play with it.
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Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude.
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One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.
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It seems to me that love, if it is fine, is essentially a discipline.
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A spot whereon the founders lived and died Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees, Or gardens rich in memory glorified Marriages, alliances, and families, And every bride's ambition satisfied.
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What can be explained is not poetry.
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I had this thought a while ago, "My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land." And I grew weary of the sun
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I bear a burden that might well try Men that do all by rule, And what can I That am a wandering-witted fool But pray to God that He ease My great responsibilities?
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O heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head You'd know the folly of being comforted.