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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 18

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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

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.

William Butler Yeats
Dog, Horse, Eye
William Butler Yeats (2017). “The Cutting of an Agate”, p.9, BoD – Books on Demand

O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Learning, Winter
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.250, Hayes Barton Press

The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.

William Butler Yeats
Father, Eye, Angel
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged / In rambling talk with an image of air: / Vague memories, nothing but memories.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Memories, Air
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.114, Library of Alexandria

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.

William Butler Yeats
Song, Eye, Fool
"A Coat" l. 8 (1914)

Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.

William Butler Yeats
Pieces, Literature, Becoming
William Butler Yeats (2017). “Ideas of Good and Evil”, p.79, Litres

My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.

William Butler Yeats
Teacher, Father, Book
William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.53, Simon and Schuster

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.

William Butler Yeats
Children, Hands, Law
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.138, Library of Alexandria

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Poetry, Sake
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman's gaze.

William Butler Yeats
Beauty, Dream, Women
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.54, Wordsworth Editions

I have heard that hysterical women say They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow, Of poets that are always gay

William Butler Yeats
Gay, Sick, Poetry
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.250, Wordsworth Editions

I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.

William Butler Yeats
Happiness, Sweet, Poetry
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it, Before that brief gleam of its life be gone.

William Butler Yeats
Beauty, Swans, Mirrors
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.177, Wordsworth Editions

For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.

William Butler Yeats
Running, Stars, Moon
William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.75, Courier Corporation

If Michael, leader of God's host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post He would his deeds forget.

William Butler Yeats
Beauty, Doors, Leader
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.18

I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

William Butler Yeats
Phoenix, Youth
'His Phoenix'

The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

William Butler Yeats
Philosophy, Fighting, Night
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.513, Simon and Schuster

Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeats
Wisdom, Oil, Dancing
"Among School Children" l. 57 (1928) See Quarles 1

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs of my fool-driven land; Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil.

William Butler Yeats
Hands, Land, Poetry
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.38, Hayes Barton Press

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.

William Butler Yeats
Beauty, God, Heaven
William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.26, Courier Corporation

We all to some extent meet again and again the same people and certainly in some cases form a kind of family of two or three or more persons who come together life after life until all passionate relations are exhausted, the child of one life the husband, wife, brother, sister of the next. Sometimes, however, a single relationship will repeat itself, turning its revolving wheel again and again.

William Butler Yeats
Brother, Children, Husband
William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Mirrors, Hands

Shakespeare cared little for the State, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilized heart.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Battle, Littles
William Butler Yeats (1908). “Ideas of good and evil”

Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

William Butler Yeats
Hate, Fate, Men
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.115, Penguin

I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.

William Butler Yeats
Kissing, Missing, Arms

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