William Butler Yeats Quotes
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Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.
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If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
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When a man grows old his joy Grows more deep day after day, His empty heart is full at length But he has need of all that strength Because of the increasing Night That opens her mystery and fright.
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I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.
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When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things.
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I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do, He died upon the gallows But that is nothing new.
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Time can but make her beauty over again.
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In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.
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Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content.
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The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
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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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A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half all green Abounding foliage moistened with the dew; And half is half and yet is all the scene; And half and half consume what they renew.
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Women are hard and proud and stubborn-hearted, Their heads being turned with praise and flattery; And that is why their lovers are afraid To tell them a plain story.
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There is no deformity But saves us from a dream.
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I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
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There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
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Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?
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My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.
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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.
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God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.
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O heart, we are old; The living beauty is for younger men: We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.
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I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.
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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.
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I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.