William Butler Yeats quotes - page 2

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober. (William Butler Yeats)
Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Life is a long preparation for something that never happens. View quote
William Butler Yeats
But is there any comfort to be found Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work, And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Consume my heart away, sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is, and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. View quote
William Butler Yeats
The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary, Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeler. (William Butler Yeats)
Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought. View quote
William Butler Yeats
O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed. View quote
William Butler Yeats
we can make our minds so still like water. That beings gather about us to see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even with a fiercer life because of silence. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Words alone are certain good. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Land of Heart's Desire Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call. View quote
William Butler Yeats
You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age They were not such a plague when I was young What else have I to spur me into song. (William Butler Yeats)
Now that my ladders gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair. View quote
William Butler Yeats
Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten the moon... View quote
William Butler Yeats
Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring. View quote
William Butler Yeats