Byzantium Quotes

• 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, Gold

  "Sailing to Byzantium" l. 30 (1928)

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• Once out of nature I shall never take
  My bodily form from any natural thing,
  But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

  William Butler Yeats

  Art, Nature, Lords And Ladies

  "Sailing to Byzantium" l. 25 (1928)

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• There remain of Europe, first, Macedonia and the part of Thrace that are contiguous to it and extend as far as Byzantium; secondly, Greece; and thirdly, the Islands that are close by. Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece, yet now, since I am following the nature and shape of the place geographically, I have decided to classify it apart from the rest of Greece and to join it with that part of Thrace.

  Strabo

  Islands, Europe, Shapes

  "Geographica". Encyclopedia by Strabo, 7 BC.

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• Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.

  Frances Mayes

  Morning, Memories, Home

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• I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

  William Butler Yeats

  Bird, Tree, Gold

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.503

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• That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations-at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.

  William Butler Yeats

  Death, Summer, Country

  "Sailing to Byzantium" l. 1 (1928)

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• An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick

  William Butler Yeats

  Time, Men, Elderly

  "Sailing to Byzantium" l. 9 (1928)

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• ... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Baby, Art, Sex

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• Writing for children is as easy as describing the history of the Byzantium in three words.

  Mo Willems

  Children, Writing, Three

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• One day in Dipstick, Nebraska, or Landfill, Oklahoma, is worth more to me than an eternity in Dante's plastic Paradiso, or Yeats's gold-plated Byzantium.

  Edward Abbey

  Oklahoma, One Day, Gold

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.28, RosettaBooks

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