William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 22

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• Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?

  William Butler Yeats

  Broken Heart, Sacrifice, Long

  "Easter 1916" l. 57 (1921)

  18 Copy quote

• You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

  William Butler Yeats

  Book, Men, Thinking

  New Poems (1938) "The Municipal Gallery Re-visited"

  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

• That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, 'To be born a woman is to know- Although they do not talk of it at school - That we must labor to be beautiful.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Sweet, School

  William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.210, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

  William Butler Yeats

  Simple, Men, Fire

  "No Second Troy" l. 11 (1910)

  4 Copy quote

• I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.

  William Butler Yeats

  Kissing, Missing, Arms

  4 Copy quote

• We all to some extent meet again and again the same people and certainly in some cases form a kind of family of two or three or more persons who come together life after life until all passionate relations are exhausted, the child of one life the husband, wife, brother, sister of the next. Sometimes, however, a single relationship will repeat itself, turning its revolving wheel again and again.

  William Butler Yeats

  Brother, Children, Husband

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Mirrors, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• I spit into the face of time that has transfigured me

  William Butler Yeats

  Faces, Spit

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.37, Wordsworth Editions

  4 Copy quote

• I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Artist, Significant Things

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.222, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

  William Butler Yeats

  Blood, Discipline, Tolerance

  Thomas Stearns Eliot, William Butler Yeats (2001). “YER”

  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

• 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

• The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

  William Butler Yeats

  Philosophy, Fighting, Night

  William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.513, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

  William Butler Yeats

  Phoenix, Youth

  'His Phoenix'

  7 Copy quote

• 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

• What made us dream that he could comb gray hair?

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Hair, Made

  Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenit︠s︡yn, Rabindranath Tagore, Sigrid Undset, William Butler Yeats (1971). “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rabindranath Tagore, Sigrid Undset [and] William Butler Yeats”

  5 Copy quote

• And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

  William Butler Yeats

  Love, Kindness, Eye

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.140, Library of Alexandria

  5 Copy quote

• We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.

  William Butler Yeats

  Hands, Mind, Half

  William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

• O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Learning, Winter

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.250, Hayes Barton Press

  4 Copy quote

• Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

  William Butler Yeats

  Future, Years, Sea

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.140, Library of Alexandria

  4 Copy quote

• There are a few of the open-air spirits; the more domestic of their tribe gather within-doors, plentiful as swallows under southern eaves.

  William Butler Yeats

  Air, Doors, Southern

  William Butler Yeats (2007). “The Celtic Twilight”, p.17, Library of Alexandria

  4 Copy quote

• What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Artist, Despair

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.135, Wordsworth Editions

  4 Copy quote

• To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour Forbidding Fate and Time and Change goodbye.

  William Butler Yeats

  Goodbye, Children, Heart

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.101, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.

  William Butler Yeats

  Writing, Men, Land

  William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

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