William Butler Yeats Quotes
-
Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.
-
Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.
-
I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.
-
Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
-
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
-
People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
-
The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
-
Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.
-
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?
-
Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.
-
While they danced they came over them the weariness with the world, the melancholy, the pity one for the other, which is the exultation of love.
-
Hammer your thoughts into unity.
-
There is only one romance the Soul's.
-
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, 'To be born a woman is to know- Although they do not talk of it at school - That we must labor to be beautiful.
-
The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind's eye than any face But that of Christ.
-
Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.
-
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
-
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
-
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
-
Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all my ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
-
A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.
-
His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
-
Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will.
-
The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.