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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 16

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I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Oxford, Doe
William Butler Yeats, Katharine Tynan (1953). “Letters to Katharine Tynan”

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.

William Butler Yeats
Memories, Soul, Mind
William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.347, Simon and Schuster

I bear a burden that might well try Men that do all by rule, And what can I That am a wandering-witted fool But pray to God that He ease My great responsibilities?

William Butler Yeats
Faith, Responsibility, Men
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.127, Library of Alexandria

Fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet high.

William Butler Yeats
Feet, Three, Sometimes
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.301, Penguin

Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song.

William Butler Yeats
Fashion, Song, Loss
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.67, Wordsworth Editions

Maybe the bride-bed brings despair, For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there...

William Butler Yeats
Marriage, Real, Despair
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.132, Library of Alexandria

What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live...?

William Butler Yeats
Life, Hope, Art
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.

William Butler Yeats
Beautiful, Hope, Hands
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.48, Wordsworth Editions

People are responsible for their opinions, but Providence is responsible for their morals.

William Butler Yeats
People, Opinion, Moral

All the wild-witches, those most notable ladies For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone.

William Butler Yeats
Tears, Sticks, Gone
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.109, Library of Alexandria

yet it seems Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind, Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams, But the torn petals strew the garden plot; And there's but common greenness after that.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Morning, Garden
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk

William Butler Yeats
Wisdom, Art, Fate
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.334, Simon and Schuster

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

William Butler Yeats
Children, Hands, Water
William Butler Yeats (1998). “Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.

William Butler Yeats
Love, Life, Dream
The Countess Kathleen (1892) "The Pity of Love"

A passion-driven exultant man sings out Sentences that he has never thought.

William Butler Yeats
Passion, Men, Driven
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.247, Wordsworth Editions

I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island in Lough Gill, and when walking through Fleet Street very homesick I heard a little tinkle of water and saw a fountain in a shop window which balanced a little ball upon its jet, and began to remember lake water. From the sudden remembrance came my poem Innisfree.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Ambition, Lakes
William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.139, Simon and Schuster

"Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea." The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days.

William Butler Yeats
Horse, Fighting, Sea
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Men, Frogs
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.240, Simon and Schuster

What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?

William Butler Yeats
Girl, Death, Pretty Girl
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.342, Simon and Schuster

Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.

William Butler Yeats
Blood, Wings, Bravery
"September, 1913" l. 7 (1914)

But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love Of solitary beds, knew what they were, That passion could bring character enough And pressed at midnighht in some public place Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.

William Butler Yeats
Girl, Passion, Character
'The Statues'

The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Joy, Fascination
"The Fascination of What's Difficult" l. 1 (1910)

What were all the world's alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms?

William Butler Yeats
Sleep, Paris, Bed
'Meditations in Time of Civil War 6: The Stare's Nest by my Window'

Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

William Butler Yeats
Women, Heart, Sides
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.27, Hayes Barton Press

I have nothing but the embittered sun; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

William Butler Yeats
Mother, Moon, Reality
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.109, Library of Alexandria

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