William Butler Yeats quotes - page 14

I call on those that call me son,Grandson, or great-grandson,On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,To judge what I have done.Have I, that put it into words,Spoilt what old loins have sent. (William Butler Yeats)
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. View quote
William Butler Yeats
A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech. View quote
William Butler Yeats
It is not permitted to a man who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance? View quote
William Butler Yeats
Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room. View quote
William Butler Yeats
For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what Blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract form, from all that is of the brain only. View quote
William Butler Yeats
If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy. (William Butler Yeats)
And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. View quote
William Butler Yeats
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Who mocks at music mocks at love. View quote
William Butler Yeats
In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion into confusion or dullness. View quote
William Butler Yeats
That toil of growing up The ignominy of boyhood the distress Of boyhood changing into man The unfinished man and his pain. View quote
William Butler Yeats
No art can conquer the people alonethe people are conquered by an ideal of life upheld by authority. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I hear it in the deep heart's core. View quote
William Butler Yeats
We . . . are no petty people. We are of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence. View quote
William Butler Yeats
What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead. (William Butler Yeats)
And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon The golden apples of the sun. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Farewell -- farewell,For I am weary of the weight of time. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Evil comes to all us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues. View quote
William Butler Yeats
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. View quote
William Butler Yeats