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The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays

Book by William Butler Yeats · 13 quotes · Art, Imagination, Men

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The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays Quotes

“I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.”

KnowsWayStillsReasonDreamBodyCertainImaginationVisionSilentCommandmentsLightingBinding
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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“If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.”

IfsWorldHeartSpiritDesirePowerfulDestinyRecordsThis WorldHistoricalSpeculationBenevolent
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“Had there been no Renaissance and no Italian influence to bring in the stories of other lands English history would, it may be, have become as important to the English imagination as the Greek Myths to the Greek imagination; and many plays by many poets would have woven it into a single story whose contours, vast as those of Greek myth, would have made living men and women seem like swallows building their nests under the architrave of some Temple of the Giants.”

MenMayMadeImportantPlayStoriesSeemsImaginationInfluenceLandBuildingPoetMen And WomenMythGreekGiantsTemplesItalianNestsRenaissanceWovenEnglish HistoryGreek Myth
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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“A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.”

SpiritualImaginationPrinciplesExpressionEssenceInvisibleFamiliarSymbolsFlamesFancyRevelationsRepresentationLampsAmusementTransparentSymbolismAllegory
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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“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.”

LifeMindArtSelfEmotionStyleAll ThingsPossessionImpressionAriseConfusionSensibleDeliberateCourtesyDullnessSwept Away
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“We cannot doubt that barbaric people receive such influences more visibly and obviously, and in all likelihood more easily and fully than we do, for our life in cities, which deafens or kills the passive meditative life, and our education that enlarges the separated, self-moving mind, have made our souls less sensitive.”

PeopleMindMadeSoulSelfMovingCitiesDoubtOur LivesInfluenceSensitivePassiveLikelihoodBarbaric
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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