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William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 8

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Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.

Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.

William Butler Yeats
Summer, Heart, Winter
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.153, Wordsworth Editions

All that could run or leap or swim Whether in wood, water or cloud, Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.

William Butler Yeats
God, Running, Nature
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .

William Butler Yeats
Taken, Sleep, Moon
William Butler Yeats (2016). “The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats”, p.57, William Butler Yeats

I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.

William Butler Yeats
Men, Fancy, Myth
William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.81, Simon and Schuster

The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.

William Butler Yeats
Men, Poetry, Bed

I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.

William Butler Yeats
Believe, Men, Swings
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.183, Simon and Schuster

Style, personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.

William Butler Yeats
Personality, Style, Hot
William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. III: Autobiogra”, p.341, Simon and Schuster

All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other's, We were so much at one.

William Butler Yeats
Years, Unity, Lovers
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.67, Wordsworth Editions

... What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?

William Butler Yeats
Passion, Fire, What Matters
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.77, Wordsworth Editions

The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind's eye than any face But that of Christ.

William Butler Yeats
Eye, Imagination, Mind
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.135, Wordsworth Editions

I had a chair at every hearth, When no one turned to see, With 'Look at that old fellow there, 'And who may he be?

William Butler Yeats
Age, May, Looks
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.136, Penguin

Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.

William Butler Yeats
Religious, Art, Age
William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.362, Simon and Schuster

Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.

William Butler Yeats
Hands, Sea, Land
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

We are closed in, and the key is turned / On our uncertainty.

William Butler Yeats
Keys, Uncertainty
William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.173, Wordsworth Editions

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.

William Butler Yeats
Peace, Water, Mind
William Butler Yeats (2007). “The Celtic Twilight”, p.70, Library of Alexandria

I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

William Butler Yeats
Flames, Sea, White
William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.130, Penguin

Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all my ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

William Butler Yeats
Lying, Heart, Rags
Last Poems (1939) "The Circus Animals' Desertion" pt. 3

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds.

William Butler Yeats
Lonely, Cheer, Loneliness
"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 9 (1919)

Bid imagination run / Much on the Great Questioner; / What He can question, what if questioned I / Can with a fitting confidence reply.

William Butler Yeats
Running, Imagination, What If
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.129

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them.

William Butler Yeats
Past, Disrespect, Catholic

Although our love is waning, let us stand by the lone border of the lake once more, together in that hour of gentleness. When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.

William Butler Yeats
Love, Children, Fall
William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

William Butler Yeats
Wise, Angel, Godly
The Land of Heart's Desire (1894) p. 12

Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.

William Butler Yeats
Men, Hands, Laughing
William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats
Nature, Past, Byzantium
"Sailing to Byzantium" l. 30 (1928)

Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.

William Butler Yeats
Wise, Hands, Storm
William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.110

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