William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

• A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
  What matter if the ditches are impure?
  What matter if I live it all once more?

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Men, What Matters

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.8, Hayes Barton Press

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• I have mummy truths to tell
  Whereat the living mock,
  Though not for sober ear,
  For maybe all that hear
  Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.

  William Butler Yeats

  Truth, Afterlife, Laughing

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.37, Hayes Barton Press

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• Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
  I cannot, but I am not content.

  William Butler Yeats

  Eye, Judging

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.54, Hayes Barton Press

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• And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lonely, Time, Loneliness

  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.211, Simon and Schuster

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• Nor bird nor beast
  Could make me wish for anything this day,
  Being old, but that the old alone might die,
  And that would be against God's Providence.

  William Butler Yeats

  Bird, Wish, Would Be

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems: Revised Second Edition”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

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• Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Heart, Kissing

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

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• When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;
  Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way
  Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,
  The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream.

  William Butler Yeats

  Jesus, Flower, Passion

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.68, Simon and Schuster

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• Both nuns and mothers worship images,
  But those the candles light are not as those
  That animate a mother's reveries,
  But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

  William Butler Yeats

  Mother, Light, Worship

  "Among School Children" l. 49 (1928)

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• And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,
  That dying chose the living world for text
  And never could have rested in the tomb
  But that, long travelling, he had come
  Towards nightfall upon certain set apart
  In a most desolate stony place.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Men, Long

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.98, Library of Alexandria

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• I thought it out this very day,
  Noon upon the clock,
  A man may put pretence away
  Who leans upon a stick,
  May sing, and sing until he drop,
  Whether to maid or hag.

  William Butler Yeats

  Men, Noon, Redemption

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.271, Simon and Schuster

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• My wretched dragon is perplexed.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Life, Dragons

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.148, Wordsworth Editions

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• I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's self.

  William Butler Yeats

  Thinking, Self, Energy

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.413

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• Why should I seek for love or study it?
  It is of God and passes human wit;
  I study hatred with great diligence,
  For that's a passion in my own control,
  A sort of besom that can clear the soul
  Of everything that is not mind or sense.

  William Butler Yeats

  Hate, Passion, Hatred

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.245, Wordsworth Editions

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• Though pedantry denies,
  It's plain the Bible means
  That Solomon grew wise
  While talking with his queens.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wise, Queens, Women

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.110, Library of Alexandria

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• The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
  And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
  Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
  She limps along in an aged whiteness.

  William Butler Yeats

  Eye, Play, Age

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.40, Penguin

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• While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,
  His "Morning" and his "Night" disclose
  How sinew that has been pulled tight,
  Or it may be loosened in repose,
  Can rule by supernatural right
  Yet be but sinew.

  William Butler Yeats

  Morning, Night, Body

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.82

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• What the world's million lips are searching for, must be substantial somewhere.

  William Butler Yeats

  World, Lips, Millions

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• Time can but make it easier to be wise / Though now it seems impossible, and so / All that you need is patience.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wise, Patience, Needs

  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.169, Simon and Schuster

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• When we have blamed the wind we can blame love.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wind, Blame

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.30, Library of Alexandria

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• Before me floats an image, man or shade, / Shade more than man, more image than a shade.

  William Butler Yeats

  Men, Shade, Floats

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.210, Wordsworth Editions

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• I hear it in the deep heart's core.

  William Butler Yeats

  Heart, Deep Heart, Core

  "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" l. 10 (1893)

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• The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.

  William Butler Yeats

  Desire, Might, Unbreakable

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.415

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• Our words must seem to be inevitable.

  William Butler Yeats

  Writing, Our Words, Inevitable

  William Butler Yeats (1954). “Letters”

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• We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.

  William Butler Yeats

  Believe, Brain, Body

  William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
  We loved each other and were ignorant.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wisdom, Ignorant, Youth

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.140

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