William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 3

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• I'm looking for the face I had, before the world was made.

  William Butler Yeats

  World, Faces, Made

  1928 'A Woman Young and Old', part 2 'Before the World was Made', stanza 1. Collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).

  18 Copy quote

• Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.

  William Butler Yeats

  Buckets, Hills, Companion

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.140, Simon and Schuster

  72 Copy quote

• All that I have said and done,
  Now that I am old and ill,
  Turns into a question till
  I lie awake night after night
  And never get the answers right.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lying, Night, Done

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.298, Wordsworth Editions

  62 Copy quote

• How can we know the dancer from the dance?

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Life, Dance

  "Among School Children" l. 61 (1928)

  19 Copy quote

• Hammer your thoughts into unity.

  William Butler Yeats

  Unity, Hammers

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “Under the Moon”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• Myself I must remake.

  William Butler Yeats

  Remakes

  1936 'An Acre of Grass', stanza 3. Collected in New Poems (1938).

  12 Copy quote

• And wisdom is a butterfly
  And not a gloomy bird of prey.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wisdom, Butterfly, Optimism

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.116, Wordsworth Editions

  29 Copy quote

• Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.

  William Butler Yeats

  Men, Vision, Literature

  William Butler Yeats (2008). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume VIII: The Irish Dramatic Movement”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

  22 Copy quote

• Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.

  William Butler Yeats

  Differences, Unity, Genius

  11 Copy quote

• Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
  Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
  Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lonely, Peace, Fall

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.49, Wordsworth Editions

  13 Copy quote

• Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.

  William Butler Yeats

  Teaching, Fire, Filling Up

  6 Copy quote

• The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.

  William Butler Yeats

  Sex, Soul, Tragedy

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.398, Simon and Schuster

  28 Copy quote

• I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.

  William Butler Yeats

  Thinking, Convince Us, Want

  9 Copy quote

• The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!

  William Butler Yeats

  Stars, Men, Soul

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

• True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.

  William Butler Yeats

  Love, Believe, Self

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. III: Autobiogra”, p.343, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

• We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

  William Butler Yeats

  Poetry, Argument, Quarrels

  "Anima Hominis" (1924)

  17 Copy quote

• When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.

  William Butler Yeats

  Sweet, Soul, Done

  William Butler Yeats (2007). “The Celtic Twilight”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

  5 Copy quote

• Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dream, Dark, Night

  "HeWishes for the Cloths of Heaven" l. 7 (1899)

  14 Copy quote

• Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lovely, Delight, Kind

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.63, Wordsworth Editions

  23 Copy quote

• Farewell - farewell, For I am weary of the weight of time.

  William Butler Yeats

  Farewell, Weight, Weary

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Hour Glass”, p.17, Yokai Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• Love comes in at the eye.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Life, Eye

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.75, Wordsworth Editions

  7 Copy quote

• In dreams begins responsibility.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

  Responsibilities epigraph (1914). Said to be from an "Old Play."

  22 Copy quote

• Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:
  For there the mystical brotherhood
  Of sun and moon and hollow and wood
  And river and stream work out their will.

  William Butler Yeats

  Nature, Heart, Moon

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.8, Library of Alexandria

  11 Copy quote

• When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Dream, Retirement

  The Countess Kathleen (1892) "When You Are Old"

  27 Copy quote

• Hearts are not had as a gift, But hearts are earned.

  William Butler Yeats

  Love, Broken Heart, Heartbreak

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

  24 Copy quote

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