William Butler Yeats quotes - page 8

For the winds that awakened the stars are blowing through my blood. (William Butler Yeats)
A lonely impulse of delight. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The official designs of the Government, especially its designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage, may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors of national taste. View quote
William Butler Yeats
O when may it suffice? That is heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Come let us mock at the wise; With all those calendars whereon They fixed old aching eyes, They never saw how seasons run, And now but gape at the sun. View quote
William Butler Yeats
This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vain-glorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. View quote
William Butler Yeats
All shuffle there; all cough in ink; All wear the carpet with their shoes; All think what other people think; All know the man their neighbour knows. Lord, what would they say Did their Catullus walk that way? View quote
William Butler Yeats
To be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words. (William Butler Yeats)
I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives, Yet praise the winters gone: There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journey's end With Landor and with Donne. View quote
William Butler Yeats
A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose. View quote
William Butler Yeats
And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the grey twilight, And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I have found nothing half so good As my long-planned half solitude, Where I can sit up half the night With some friend that has the wit Not to allow his looks to tell When I am unintelligible. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The Babylonian starlight brought A fabulous, formless darkness in; Odour of blood when Christ was slain Made all platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline. View quote
William Butler Yeats
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, Where blood-begotten spirits come And all complexities of fury leave, Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye That more expected the impossible. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, 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
All women dote upon an idle man Although their children need a rich estate. No man has ever lived that had enough Of children's gratitude or woman's love. (William Butler Yeats)
Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words. View quote
William Butler Yeats
This country will not always be an uncomfortable place for a country gentleman to live in, and it is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am afraid that Labour disagrees with me in that. On this matter I am a crusted Tory. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says "there is no wisdom without leisure." View quote
William Butler Yeats
The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. View quote
William Butler Yeats