William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 7

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• A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard A voice singing on a May Eve like this, And followed half awake and half asleep, Until she came into 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. And she is still there, busied with a dance Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wise, Daughter, Kings

  William Butler Yeats (1814). “The Land of Heart's Desire”, p.12

  5 Copy quote

• Earth in beauty dressed
  Awaits returning spring.
  All true love must die,
  Alter at the best
  Into some lesser thing.
  Prove that I lie.

  William Butler Yeats

  Spring, Lying, Loss

  William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.151, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Butler Yeats

  Hate, Fighting, Fate

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 1 (1919)

  30 Copy quote

• 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"

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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)

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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)

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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”

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  20 Copy quote

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