William Butler Yeats Quotes
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One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.
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On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, A Buddha, hand at rest, Hand lifted up that blest; And right between these two a girl at play That, it may be, had danced her life away.
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I spit into the face of time that has transfigured me
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Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul
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Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare.
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The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.
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The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
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Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.
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May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
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Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
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Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.
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Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love's pleasure drives his love away, The painter's brush consumes his dreams.
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The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.
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He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.
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A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?
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And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
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even The bed of love, that in the imagination Had seemed to be the giver of all peace, Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting, And as soon finished.
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All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right.
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Myself I must remake.
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Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by
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Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.
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Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
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A sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think.
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The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood.