William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 21

Quotes about:

Age Aging Anarchy Angels Animals Art Balance

The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy.

William Butler Yeats

Dream, Truth, Joy

William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.142, Penguin

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the lonely of heart, And the lonely of heart is withered away.

William Butler Yeats

Sad, Lonely, Heart

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.542, Simon and Schuster

8 Copy quote
My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.

William Butler Yeats

Life, Truth, Imagination

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.257, Wordsworth Editions

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
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"

7 Copy quote
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

5 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
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

8 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,
Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored;
Great nations blossom above,
A slave bows down to a slave.

William Butler Yeats

Loyalty, Pride, Soldier

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.581, Simon and Schuster

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

William Butler Yeats

Wisdom, Song, Art

William Butler Yeats (2011). “The Yeats Reader, Revised Edition: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama, and Prose”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

4 Copy quote
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

4 Copy quote
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.

William Butler Yeats

Growing Up, Pain, Men

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.240, Simon and Schuster

62 Copy quote
How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

William Butler Yeats

Innocence, Born, Ceremony

William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.478, Simon and Schuster

4 Copy quote
Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.

William Butler Yeats

Garden, Spinning, Jenny

"Fragments" l. 1 (1931)

4 Copy quote
An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?

William Butler Yeats

Thinking, Wind, Hatred

Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1920) "A Prayer for My Daughter"

7 Copy quote
I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.

William Butler Yeats

Mother, Heart, Womb

'Remorse for Intemperate Speech'

10 Copy quote
If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had Before the world was made.

William Butler Yeats

Eye, Dark, Vanity

1928 'A Woman Young and Old', part 2 'Before the World was Made', stanza 1. Collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).

18 Copy quote
It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.

William Butler Yeats

Fall, Needs, Adam

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.64, Wordsworth Editions

4 Copy quote
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

7 Copy quote
It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

William Butler Yeats

Crazy, Women, Meat

"A Prayer for my Daughter" l. 30 (1919)

20 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Jack Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

Follow

Born: June 13, 1865
Died: January 28, 1939
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics