William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 23

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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

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I would that there was nothing in the world
But my beloved that night and day had perished,
And all that is and all that is to be,
All that is not the meeting of our lips.

William Butler Yeats

Night, World, Lips

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.435, Simon and Schuster

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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

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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

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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

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for never yet
Has lover lived, but longed to wive
Like them that are no more alive.

William Butler Yeats

Alive, Lovers

William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.28, Library of Alexandria

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Shakespeare cared little for the State, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilized heart.

William Butler Yeats

Heart, Battle, Littles

William Butler Yeats (1908). “Ideas of good and evil”

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While on that old grey stone I sat
Under the old wind-broken tree,
I knew that One is animate,
Mankind inanimate phantasy.

William Butler Yeats

Reality, Wind, Broken

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.161, Wordsworth Editions

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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”

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And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly.

William Butler Yeats

Life, Change, Lying

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.368, Simon and Schuster

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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

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God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.

William Butler Yeats

Wings, Giving, Heaven

William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.67, Simon and Schuster

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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

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But stories that live longest
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country
And Parnell loved his lass.

William Butler Yeats

Country, Glasses, Stories

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.265, Wordsworth Editions

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I--love's skein upon the ground,
My body in the tomb--
Shall leap into the light lost
In my mother's womb.

William Butler Yeats

Mother, Light, Body

William Butler Yeats (2011). “Selected Poems And Four Plays”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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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

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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)

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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

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Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeats

Wisdom, Oil, Dancing

"Among School Children" l. 57 (1928) See Quarles 1

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All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

William Butler Yeats

Fall, Gay, Rebirth

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.250, Wordsworth Editions

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The common breeds the common,
A lout begets a lout,
So when I take on half a score
I knock their heads about.

William Butler Yeats

Half, Violence, Common

William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.827, Simon and Schuster

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How can the arts overcome the slow dying of men's hearts that we call progress ?

William Butler Yeats

Art, Men, Progress

William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.364

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For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.

William Butler Yeats

Running, Stars, Moon

William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.75, Courier Corporation

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Time can but make her beauty over again.

William Butler Yeats

Appreciation, Her Beauty

William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.62, Wordsworth Editions

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How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics?

William Butler Yeats

Love, Girl, Heart

William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.356, Simon and Schuster

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

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