W.B. Yeats Quotes

My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd. "This Land of Saints," and then as the applause died out, "Of plaster Saints;" his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.

even The bed of love, that in the imagination Had seemed to be the giver of all peace, Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting, And as soon finished.

Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy.

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

Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

If Michael, leader of God's host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post He would his deeds forget.

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.

Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it, Before that brief gleam of its life be gone.

And when you sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew.

Poetry and music I have banished, But the stupidity Of root, shoot, blossom or clay Makes no demand. I bend my body to the spade Or grope with a dirty hand.

I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.

O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake.

Man has created death.

It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.

I--though heart might find relief Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief What seems most welcome in the tomb--play a predestined part. Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.

Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.

I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag.

I have nothing but the embittered sun; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.

Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

Who mocks at music mocks at love.

My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.

Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.

Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.

What's memory but the ash That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?

The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

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

The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.

What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?

For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?

The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.

Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it.

No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.

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

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.

Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul

Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.

We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

I spit into the face of time that has transfigured me

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then.

I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.

The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.

May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer.

Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.

Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.