Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenHeartWorldLifeIfsEyeDreamKnowsMayMindSoulThinkingMadeLoveHandsLongPoetryWindArtBody

Famous William Butler Yeats 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
Create image

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

LoveLifeDreamPoorPovertyFeetFutureSpreadYour DreamsDreamerFollow Your DreamsEquilibriumI Had A DreamJust A DreamDreams You HaveSmall DreamsWedding CeremonyBeing IrishFollowing DreamsTreadingIreland And The IrishBelieve In Your DreamsFollowing My DreamsYeastStop DreamingIrish WritersDreaming About YouSpeak SoftlyFeet And WalkingDreams And NightmaresDreams And LoveEmpty Souls
Author:William Butler Yeats
Create image

“When You Are Old" WHEN you are old and grey 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; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”

MenLooksLittlesBookSoulMomentsDreamEyeFacesStarsSleepFireGraceSorrowMountainShadowCrowdsGladBarsOne ManGreyGlowingPilgrimOverheadBendingNoddingBending Down
Author:William Butler Yeats
Create image

“Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingWellsHeartKindMadeEnoughPlayDreamSeemsCertainLostGivenCostKissingBlindLipsPassionateDelightLovelyDumbFadesSmoothDeafDreamyDeaf And DumbPassionate Woman
Book:The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
Create image

“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”

MenLittlesSoulDreamBodyLightAgeSpiritualPerfectDarknessSkyDivineGrewBirthLettersGoldHeavyUpliftingFancyLabourMortalityEcstasyDreamerCriedCurtainsFillingAlchemistWearinessFurnacesPoints Of LightSpiritual Beauty
Book:The Yeats companion
Create image