W.B. Yeats Quotes

What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone.

"Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea." The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days.

What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?

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.

I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young / And weep because I know all things now.

Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.

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

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

now I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound.

... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.

We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.

What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?

Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.

A lonely impulse of delight

Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.

And I will find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,/ Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.

All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low.

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

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

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.

I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.

Everything we look upon is blest.

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

Time drops in decay Like a candle burnt out. And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; But, kindly old rout Of the fire-born moods, You pass not away.

Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.

Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man die in his bed Or the rifle knocks him dead

He Who is wrapped in purple robes, With planets in His care, Had pity on the least of things Asleep upon a chair.

There is only one romance the Soul's.

And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight.

A drunkard is a dead man And all dead men are drunk.

Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.

I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.

I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.

Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content.

A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?

Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God's Providence.

I know of the leafy paths that the witches take Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake.

to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.

Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.

Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.

Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more.

I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.

Ah, let us kiss each other's eyes,/And laugh our love away.

Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease.

When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, suddenly I meet your face.