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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 7

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Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

William Butler Yeats
Garden, Hands, Rivers
Poems (1895) "Down by the Salley Gardens"

Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Body, Tranquility
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.174, Wordsworth Editions

but one loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Retirement, Flower
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.222, Penguin

Man's life is thought, And he, despite his terror, cannot cease Ravening through century after century, Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come Into the desolation of reality.

William Butler Yeats
Life, Men, Thinking
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.151

There's keen delight in what we have: The rattle of pebbles on the shore Under the receding wave.

William Butler Yeats
Heritage, Delight, Pebbles
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man die in his bed Or the rifle knocks him dead

William Butler Yeats
Life, Men, Race
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

We cannot doubt that barbaric people receive such influences more visibly and obviously, and in all likelihood more easily and fully than we do, for our life in cities, which deafens or kills the passive meditative life, and our education that enlarges the separated, self-moving mind, have made our souls less sensitive.

William Butler Yeats
Moving, Self, Cities
William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.

William Butler Yeats
Mind, May, Casts
"Under Ben Bulben" l. 81 (1939)

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.

William Butler Yeats
Truth, Lying, Ideas

I have found nothing half so good / As my long-planned half solitude, / Where I can sit up half the night / With some friend that has the wit.

William Butler Yeats
Night, Long, Solitude
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.210, Simon and Schuster

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

William Butler Yeats
Truth, Men, Knows
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

What if the Church and the State Are the mob that howls at the door! Wine shall run thick to the end, Bread taste sour.

William Butler Yeats
Running, Wine, Government
William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.80, Hayes Barton Press

An Irish Airman foresees his Death I Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats
Country, Lonely, Cheer
"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 1 (1919)

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

William Butler Yeats
Sun, Virtue
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.81, Wordsworth Editions

All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

William Butler Yeats
Art, Essence, Purpose

How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.

William Butler Yeats
Wedding, Stars, Memories
William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.

William Butler Yeats
Beautiful, Dream, College
William Butler Yeats (1954). “The Letters of W.B. Yeats”

I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless.

William Butler Yeats
Book, Blessed, Men
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.255, Simon and Schuster

I know of the leafy paths that the witches take Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake.

William Butler Yeats
Halloween, Lakes, Secret
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.63, Wordsworth Editions

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

William Butler Yeats
Men, History, Finding Yourself

Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.

William Butler Yeats
Dream, Moving, Light
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.99, Penguin

The blessed spirits must be sought within the self which is common to all

William Butler Yeats
Blessed, Self, Spirit
William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain. Because the mountain grass Cannot keep the form Where the mountain hare has lain.

William Butler Yeats
Two, Poetry, Lovely
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.125, Wordsworth Editions

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there.

William Butler Yeats
Heart, Tree, Growing
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.139, Penguin

This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands.

William Butler Yeats
Butterfly, Eye, Garden
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.144, Wordsworth Editions

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