William Butler Yeats Quotes

Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Men Quotes , Hands Quotes

It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Plato Quotes , Eye Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Lonely Quotes , Cheer Quotes

A man in his own secret meditation / Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made / In art or politics.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Art Quotes , Men Quotes

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

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Wings Quotes , Giving Quotes

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Heart Quotes , Substance Quotes

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.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Dream Quotes , Dark Quotes

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Doe Quotes , Lines Quotes

Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Mother Quotes , Light Quotes

In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Work Quotes , Frustration Quotes

An Irish Airman foresees his Death I Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Country Quotes , Lonely Quotes

Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Love Quotes , Player Quotes

Wine enters through the mouth, Love, the eyes. I raise the glass to my mouth, I look at you, I sigh.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Wine Quotes , Eye Quotes

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Sun Quotes

Words alone are certain good.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes

I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Phoenix Quotes

How can the arts overcome the slow dying of men's hearts that we call progress ?

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Art Quotes , Men Quotes

For wisdom is the property of the dead, A something incompatible with life; and power, Like everything that has the stain of blood, A property of the living; but no stain Can come upon the visage of the moon When it has looked in glory from a cloud.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Life Quotes , Wisdom Quotes

Everything we look upon is blest.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Looks Quotes

I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : William Butler Yeats Quotes , Children Quotes , Hands Quotes