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William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats Quotes

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Famous William Butler Yeats Quotes

“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
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.”

IfsWorldMindSoulSidesMemoriesOpinionRichHabitBuiltEmptyInstinctExtremesInstanceSooner Or LaterProbabilityPropositionsStrainAffrontEmpty Souls
Book:Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats
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“A sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think.”

ThinkingMenWorldNeedsWellsLooksKindMayFacesHouseForgetDarknessSunJourneySeaShadowAll ThingsStormBridgesWarmthValleysCaptainsSailingCornDeckPoppiesSailing And The SeaWarmth Of The Sun
Book:The Celtic Twilight
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“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”

WorldFallBloodWorstMerePassionateConvictionInnocenceAnarchyIntensityTidesCentreFalling ApartCeremonyFalcon
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“...Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing. Beauty grown sad with its eternity Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea. Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait, For God has bid them share an equal fate; And when at last defeated in His wars, They have gone down under the same white stars, We shall no longer hear the little cry Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.”

WorldHeartMayLittlesLongMadeWarLastsDiesStarsWaitingWhiteGoneFateHeardSeaShareCrySweetSorrowEqualEternityRoseRingsShipsBellsTidesDefeatedSailGreyWovenSad Heart
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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“Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .”

WorldHandsLightNightSleepTakenTroubleFeetMoonWaveFlightSandLeapGrayAnxiousBubblesGlancesMoonlightWeavingGlossMingling
Book:The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats
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“Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldShouldLooksHeartMadeEyeFacesAsksDarkBloodColdMy HeartMirrorsLipsVanityBelovedWhat IfBetrayedLashesScarlet
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world, and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.”

PeopleWorldWayLooksLittlesShowsBeautifulFacesArtistMy OwnVisionWrittenHeardSignificantPleasantIrelandCommentaryClumsySignificant Things
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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“Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them.”

WorldShouldMayHas BeensMatterPastChurchTreatsCatholicArguingContraryMysticismLutherScholarshipCatholic ChurchDisrespectGreat Power
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious,of many things we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.”

MenWorldDoeReasonEyeAnimalDogConsciousHorseInstinctTerrorPerceivePrimitiveDeliberateNatural WorldOrderlyHowlShiver
Book:The Cutting of an Agate
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