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I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.

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
Behind
Breath
Death
Breaths
Come
Seemed
Mind
Brought
Years
Waste
Life
Balance
Dying
Behinds
Balanced

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Come, fix upon me that accusing eye. I thirst for accusation. All that was sung. All that was said in Ireland is a lie Breed out of the contagion of the throng, Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
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The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.
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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.
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The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.
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We are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Burke we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence.
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I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone.
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All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.
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Education is not filling
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If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?
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God guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone.
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I--though heart might find relief Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief What seems most welcome in the tomb--play a predestined part. Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
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An intellectual hatred is the worst.
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Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
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I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window.
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Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
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I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams.
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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.
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Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.
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