William Butler Yeats Quotes

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.

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When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things.

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But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good.

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Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.

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You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.

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

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Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

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It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says there is no wisdom without leisure.

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I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent

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

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Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion.

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

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Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.

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When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay; Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream.

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

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It seems to me that love, if it is fine, is essentially a discipline.

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It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

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The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.

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I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.

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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.

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