William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 8

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• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

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• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• ... 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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)

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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)

  9 Copy quote

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