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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 14

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Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.

Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.

William Butler Yeats
Writing, Light, Cast Away
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.558, Simon and Schuster

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.

William Butler Yeats
Friendship, Song, Issues
"The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats". Book by W. B. Yeats, 1908.

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

William Butler Yeats
Doe, Lines, Pavement
In the Seven Woods (1903) "Adam's Curse"

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.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Lost Love, Triumph
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.99, Wordsworth Editions

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more.

William Butler Yeats
Sweet, Flames, Voice
William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.40, Courier Corporation

When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, suddenly I meet your face.

William Butler Yeats
Wine, Sleep, Faces
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half all green Abounding foliage moistened with the dew; And half is half and yet is all the scene; And half and half consume what they renew.

William Butler Yeats
Flames, Tree, Dew
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

I have nothing more to give you than my heart. Spanish saying Hearts are not to be had as a gift hearts are to be earned.

William Butler Yeats
Love, Heart, Giving

If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?

William Butler Yeats
Soul, Looks, Body
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.155

I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.

William Butler Yeats
Truth, Men, Self
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.523, Hayes Barton Press

Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease.

William Butler Yeats
Fall, Compassion, Fire
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.34

Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.

William Butler Yeats
Mother, Heart, Hatred
Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932) "Remorse for Intemperate Speech"

Is it not certain that the Creator yawns in earthquake and thunder and other popular displays, but toils in rounding the delicate spiral of a shell? -Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil

William Butler Yeats
Earthquakes, Toil, Shells

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?

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Sadness, Dumb
'A Song'

I knew that I had seen, had seen at last That girl my unremembering nights hold fast Or else my dreams that fly If I should rub an eye, And yet in flying fling into my meat A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat.

William Butler Yeats
Girl, Dream, Crazy
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.233, Hayes Barton Press

Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.

William Butler Yeats
World, Guests, Tongue
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.179, Wordsworth Editions

What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone.

William Butler Yeats
Time, Knowledge, Love Is
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.137

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.

William Butler Yeats
Journey, Men, Thinking
William Butler Yeats (2007). “The Celtic Twilight”, p.85, Library of Alexandria

No man has ever lived that had enough of children's gratitude or woman's love.

William Butler Yeats
Family, Gratitude, Children
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

O heart, we are old; The living beauty is for younger men: We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Men, Tears
William Butler Yeats (1997). “"Easter, 1916" and Other Poems”, p.9, Courier Corporation

rhetoric is will doing the work of imagination.

William Butler Yeats
Imagination, Rhetoric

A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.

William Butler Yeats
Spiritual, Expression, Flames
William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will

William Butler Yeats
Sweet, Self, Heaven
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.478, Simon and Schuster

On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!

William Butler Yeats
Life, Death, Eye
"Under Ben Bulben" l. 89 (1939). The final three lines are in fact inscribed on Yeats's gravestone.

We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy.

William Butler Yeats
Tragedy

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