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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.
William Butler Yeats
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William Butler Yeats
Age: 73 †
Born: 1865
Born: June 13
Died: 1939
Died: January 28
Astrologer
Mystic
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Scrooby
Nottinghamshire
W. B. Yeats
William Yeats
W.B. Yeats
Hands
Mortals
Clap
Soul
Stick
Demise
Thing
Dress
Louder
Every
Sticks
Aged
Men
Dresses
Coat
Sing
Elderly
Unless
Coats
Tattered
Upon
Mortal
Paltry
More quotes by William Butler Yeats
Nothing that we love overmuch Is ponderable to our touch.
William Butler Yeats
There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind.
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
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna's children died.
William Butler Yeats
Speech after long silence it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead . . . That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom young We loved each other and were ignorant.
William Butler Yeats
It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says there is no wisdom without leisure.
William Butler Yeats
O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet.
William Butler Yeats
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.
William Butler Yeats
Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
William Butler Yeats
I pray-for fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.
William Butler Yeats
Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked and where are they?
William Butler Yeats
O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
William Butler Yeats
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew.
William Butler Yeats
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.
William Butler Yeats
I had this thought a while ago, My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land. And I grew weary of the sun
William Butler Yeats
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
William Butler Yeats
Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.
William Butler Yeats
I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.
William Butler Yeats
Talent perceives differences genius, unity.
William Butler Yeats
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
William Butler Yeats
