William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 3

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

William Butler Yeats

Teaching, Fire, Filling Up

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Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

William Butler Yeats

Thinking, Stones, Tongue

William Butler Yeats (2016). “Collected Poems”, p.134, William Butler Yeats

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One man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

William Butler Yeats

Love, Men, Bending Down

'When You Are Old'

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Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.

William Butler Yeats

Differences, Unity, Genius

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Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

William Butler Yeats

Party, Character, Fighting

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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).

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For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

William Butler Yeats

World, Fairy, Empty Souls

William Butler Yeats (1998). “Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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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

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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

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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

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Hammer your thoughts into unity.

William Butler Yeats

Unity, Hammers

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

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Myself I must remake.

William Butler Yeats

Remakes

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

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How can we know the dancer from the dance?

William Butler Yeats

Inspirational, Life, Dance

"Among School Children" l. 61 (1928)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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"

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In dreams begins responsibility.

William Butler Yeats

Inspirational, Life, Dream

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

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

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