Authors:

William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 19

All Quotes Age Anarchy Art Beauty Beer Bones Chaos Character Children Country Dance Dancing Death Desire Discipline Drinking Dying Earth Evil Faith Fashion Fate Fear Fighting Friendship Genius Giving God Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hills House Imagination Innocence Inspirational Joy Judging Kindness Kissing Laughter Learning Life Literature Logic Loneliness Losing Loss Love Lying Memories Moon Morning Mountain Nature Overcoming Pain Passion Past Peace Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Pride Reality Responsibility Running Sadness School Silence Sleep Solitude Soul Spring Style Summer Time Tragedy Truth Twilight Unity Violence Virtue Vision War Water Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Youth
God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.

God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.

William Butler Yeats
Wings, Giving, Heaven
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the leveling wind.

William Butler Yeats
Wind, Mind, Burden
William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, Jared R. Curtis (2007). “The Tower (1928): Manuscript Materials”

Man has created death.

William Butler Yeats
Men, Biodiversity
'Death'

Because the priest must have like every dog his day Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon, We and our dolls being but the world were best away.

William Butler Yeats
Dog, Moon, Dolls
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.159, Simon and Schuster

Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.

William Butler Yeats
Eye, Fire, Feet
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.193, Hayes Barton Press

Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked and where are they?

William Butler Yeats
Holiday, Gay, Wind
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.178, Wordsworth Editions

The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler.

William Butler Yeats
Faith, Glasses, Mosaics
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.223, Simon and Schuster

Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

William Butler Yeats
Heaven, Tragedy, Scene
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.250, Wordsworth Editions

While they danced they came over them the weariness with the world, the melancholy, the pity one for the other, which is the exultation of love.

William Butler Yeats
Love, World, Melancholy
William Butler Yeats (1925). “Early poems and stories”

Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit.

William Butler Yeats
Laughter, Moon, Voice
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, A Buddha, hand at rest, Hand lifted up that blest; And right between these two a girl at play That, it may be, had danced her life away.

William Butler Yeats
Girl, Rocks, Hands
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.446, Simon and Schuster

The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.

William Butler Yeats
Night, Bed, Half
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.137, Penguin

As man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead begets Godhead, For things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine Tablet said. Yet all must copy copies, all increase their kind.

William Butler Yeats
Men, Ephemeral, Tablets
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.328, Hayes Barton Press

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on.

William Butler Yeats
Children, Sleep, Storm
William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.101, William Butler Yeats

now I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound.

William Butler Yeats
Wine, Sleep, Ephesians
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.143, Hayes Barton Press

A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

William Butler Yeats
Greatness, Moisture, Mouths
"Byzantium" l. 15 (1933)

The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.

William Butler Yeats
Half, Violence, Common
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.827, Simon and Schuster

What shall I do with this absurdity- O heart, O troubled heart-this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye That more expected the impossible.

William Butler Yeats
Dog, Heart, Eye
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.488, Simon and Schuster

I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men's ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.

William Butler Yeats
Fate, Men, Shoes
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.5, Wordsworth Editions

Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy.

William Butler Yeats
Boys, Men, Optimism
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.116, Wordsworth Editions

A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Mad, Shade
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.187, Wordsworth Editions

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.

William Butler Yeats
Fear, Animal, Men
The Winding Stair (1929) "Death"

I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone.

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

While man can still his body keep Wine or love drug him to sleep, Waking he thanks the Lord that he Has body and its stupidity.

William Butler Yeats
Wine, Sleep, Men
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.298, Wordsworth Editions

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

William Butler Yeats
Happiness, Laughter, Joy

You May Also Like: