William Butler Yeats Quotes
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Farewell - farewell, For I am weary of the weight of time.
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Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.
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One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious,of many things we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.
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Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.
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The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.
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I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.
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While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof, His "Morning" and his "Night" disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew.
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And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight.
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All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.
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I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
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Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
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I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.
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Myself I must remake.
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All the stream that's roaring by Came out of a needle's eye.
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for never yet Has lover lived, but longed to wive Like them that are no more alive.
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Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.
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I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
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We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.
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When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, suddenly I meet your face.
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Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
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For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.
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You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.
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Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit.
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Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer.