William Butler Yeats Quotes
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The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy.
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But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love Of solitary beds, knew what they were, That passion could bring character enough And pressed at midnighht in some public place Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.
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The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
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All that could run or leap or swim Whether in wood, water or cloud, Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.
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Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.
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An intellectual hatred is the worst.
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The pain others give passes away in their later kindness, but that of our own blunders, especially when they hurt our vanity, never passes away
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Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.
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How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
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If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
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For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.
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Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.
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We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.
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A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
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Ah, let us kiss each other's eyes,/And laugh our love away.
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I can exchange opinion with any neighbouring mind, I have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer's had, But O! my Heart could bear no more when the upland caught the wind; I ran, I ran, from my love's side because my Heart went mad.
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Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
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Words alone are certain good.
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Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.
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Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.
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It's certain there are trout somewhere - And maybe I shall take a trout - but I do not seem to care.
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Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.
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It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.
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All think what other people think; All know the man their neighbor knows. Lord, what would they say Did their Catullus walk that way?