William Butler Yeats Quotes - Page 8

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• I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beautiful, Dream, College

  William Butler Yeats (1954). “The Letters of W.B. Yeats”

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• Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all my ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lying, Heart, Rags

  Last Poems (1939) "The Circus Animals' Desertion" pt. 3

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• Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

  William Butler Yeats

  Men, History, Finding Yourself

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• The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.

  William Butler Yeats

  Men, Poetry, Bed

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• Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

  William Butler Yeats

  Heart, Body, Tranquility

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.174, Wordsworth Editions

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• I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless.

  William Butler Yeats

  Book, Blessed, Men

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.255, Simon and Schuster

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• How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wedding, Stars, Memories

  William Butler Yeats (2008). “COLLECTED POEMS OF W.B. YEATS”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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• The chief imagination of Christendom,
  Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself
  That he has made that hollow face of his
  More plain to the mind's eye than any face
  But that of Christ.

  William Butler Yeats

  Eye, Imagination, Mind

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

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• The blessed spirits must be sought within the self which is common to all

  William Butler Yeats

  Blessed, Self, Spirit

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

  William Butler Yeats

  Art, Essence, Purpose

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• All through the years of our youth
  Neither could have known
  Their own thought from the other's,
  We were so much at one.

  William Butler Yeats

  Years, Unity, Lovers

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.67, Wordsworth Editions

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• I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.

  William Butler Yeats

  Believe, Men, Swings

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.183, Simon and Schuster

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• Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.

  William Butler Yeats

  Summer, Heart, Winter

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.153, Wordsworth Editions

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• Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

  William Butler Yeats

  Sun, Virtue

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.81, Wordsworth Editions

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• Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them.

  William Butler Yeats

  Past, Disrespect, Catholic

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• This great purple butterfly,
  In the prison of my hands,
  Has a learning in his eye
  Not a poor fool understands.

  William Butler Yeats

  Butterfly, Eye, Garden

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.144, Wordsworth Editions

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• ... What matter, so there is but fire
  In you, in me?

  William Butler Yeats

  Passion, Fire, What Matters

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.77, Wordsworth Editions

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• Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.

  William Butler Yeats

  Wise, Hands, Storm

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.110

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• I had a chair at every hearth,
  When no one turned to see,
  With 'Look at that old fellow there,
  'And who may he be?

  William Butler Yeats

  Age, May, Looks

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.136, Penguin

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• All that could run or leap or swim
  Whether in wood, water or cloud,
  Acclaiming, proclaiming, declaiming Him.

  William Butler Yeats

  God, Running, Nature

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

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• Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds.

  William Butler Yeats

  Lonely, Cheer, Loneliness

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 9 (1919)

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• Words alone are certain good.

  William Butler Yeats

  Certain

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.142, Penguin

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• We are closed in, and the key is turned / On our uncertainty.

  William Butler Yeats

  Keys, Uncertainty

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.173, Wordsworth Editions

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• Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.

  William Butler Yeats

  Religious, Art, Age

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.362, Simon and Schuster

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• Bid imagination run / Much on the Great Questioner; / What He can question, what if questioned I / Can with a fitting confidence reply.

  William Butler Yeats

  Running, Imagination, What If

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.129

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