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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 23

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The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.

William Butler Yeats
Green, Hunger, Ugliness
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron's hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack.

William Butler Yeats
Feet, Hypocrisy, Safety
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.260, Simon and Schuster

A spot whereon the founders lived and died Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees, Or gardens rich in memory glorified Marriages, alliances, and families, And every bride's ambition satisfied.

William Butler Yeats
Memories, Ambition, Garden
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol X: Later Article: Uncollected Articles, Reviews, and Radio Broadcasts Written After 1900”, p.212, Simon and Schuster

Acquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked.

William Butler Yeats
Brilliant, Youth, Bitter
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

William Butler Yeats
God, Time, Oxen
Poems (1895) "The Countess Cathleen" act 4

I would that I were an old beggar Rolling a blind pearl eye, For he cannot see my lady Go gallivanting by.

William Butler Yeats
Eye, Rolling, Pearls
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.242, Wordsworth Editions

O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

William Butler Yeats
Rogues, Fine, Worst
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.175, Wordsworth Editions

Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.

William Butler Yeats
God, Hatred, Soul
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.246, Wordsworth Editions

It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.

William Butler Yeats
Plato, Eye, Imagination
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.418, Hayes Barton Press

But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

William Butler Yeats
Dog, Fleas
1909 'To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine', complete poem. Collected in The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910).

The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.

William Butler Yeats
Artist, Style, Alchemist

In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

William Butler Yeats
Work, Frustration, Night
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.

William Butler Yeats
Death, Heart, Speech
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

William Butler Yeats
Christian, Passion, Writing
William Butler Yeats (1955). “Letters”

It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.

William Butler Yeats
Philosophy, Firsts, Hinduism
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. III: Autobiogra”, p.98, Simon and Schuster

. . . you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death

William Butler Yeats
Passion, Thinking, May
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.75, Library of Alexandria

No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.

William Butler Yeats
Writing, Men, Land
William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things.

William Butler Yeats
Art, Public Opinion, Another Day
William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.72, Library of Alexandria

Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.

William Butler Yeats
Growing Up, Shapes, Toes
Last Poems (1939) "Under Ben Bulben" pt. 5

And if joy were not on the earth, There were an end of change and birth, And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die, And in some gloomy barrow lie Folded like a frozen fly.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Change, Lying
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.368, Simon and Schuster

Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.

William Butler Yeats
Small Rooms, World, May
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.110, Wordsworth Editions

I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.

William Butler Yeats
Mother, Light, Body
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

O would, beloved, that you lay Under the dock-leaves in the ground, While lights were paling one by one.

William Butler Yeats
Light, Docks, Beloved
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.59, Wordsworth Editions

... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.

William Butler Yeats
Marriage, Bird, Cages
William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.124, William Butler Yeats

To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour Forbidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.

William Butler Yeats
Goodbye, Children, Heart
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.101, Penguin

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