William Butler Yeats Quotes
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Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk
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What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?
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A passion-driven exultant man sings out Sentences that he has never thought.
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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?
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My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.
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Acquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked.
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If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
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I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag.
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Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
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For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind?
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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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Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.
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We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.
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I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.
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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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God guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone.
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An intellectual hatred is the worst.
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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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Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.
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I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
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For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.
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I have found nothing half so good / As my long-planned half solitude, / Where I can sit up half the night / With some friend that has the wit.
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A speckled cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there; And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence.