W.B. Yeats

Quotes

• “A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the steps of an exceedin...”
• “Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;Remember the wisdom out of the old days:*Him who trembles before the flame a...”
• “And now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, O brother abbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfath...”
• “...I was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl -- a cousin I think -- having waited under a group of trees in...”
• “When all is said and done, how do we not know but that our own unreason may be better than another’s truth? for it has b...”
• “My fiftieth year had come and gone,I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,An open book and empty cupOn the marbl...”
• “I went out to the hazel woodbecause a fire was in my headcut and peeled a hazel wandand hooked a berry to a threadand wh...”
• “O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and joy! O race that do...”
• “THOUGH you are in your shining days,Voices among the crowdAnd new friends busy with your praise,Be not unkind or proud,B...”
• “In tombs of gold and lapis lazuliBodies of holy men and women exudeMiraculous oil, odour of violet.But under heavy loads...”
• “Before me floats an image, man or shade,Shade more than man, more image than a shade;For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cl...”
• “Round these men stories tended to group themselves, sometimes deserting more ancient heroes for the purpose. Round poets...”
• “We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, an...”
• “(I) only write it now because I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less danger...”
• “One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and...”
• “The Coming of Wisdom with TimeThough leaves are many, the root is one,Through all the lying days of my youthI swayed my ...”
• “The Coming of Wisdom with TimeThough leaves are many, the root is one;Through all the lying days of my youthI swayed my ...”
• “When you are old and grey and full of sleep And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream o...”
• “How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgri...”
• “O bid me mount and sail up thereAmid the cloudy wrack,For Peg and Meg and Paris' loveThat had so straight a back,Are gon...”
• “Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular wh...”
• “O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening ...”
• “Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,For I would ride with you upon the wind,Run on the top of the dishevelled t...”
• “An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unlessSoul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor e...”
• “Never shall a young man,Thrown into despairBy those great honey-colouredRamparts at your ear,Love you for yourself alone...”
• “I said: 'A line will take us hours maybe;Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,Our stitching and unstitching has be...”
• “I have just read a long novel by Henry James. Much of it made me think of the priest condemned for a long space to confe...”
• “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield”
• “But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dr”
• “Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is saidIt was the dream itself enchanted me("The Circus Animal's Desertion")”
• “I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.”
• “Wine enters through the mouth,Love, the eyes.I raise the glass to my mouth,I look at you,I sigh.”
• “Jonathan Swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbor as himself.”
• “I am persuaded that our intellects at twenty contain all the truths we shall ever find”
• “What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?”
• “How far away the stars seem, and how farIs our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!”
• “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
• “I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.”
• “Labour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.”
• “The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.”
• “Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?”
• “Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
• “I carry the Sun in a Golden Cup, the Moon in a Silver Bag.”
• “I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me.”
• “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
• “Surely some revelation is at hand.”
• “In dreams begin responsibilities.”
• “In dreams begin responsibilities”
• “A lonely impulse of delight”