Quote

All the great masters have understood that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it

William Butler Yeats

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Little
Beyond
Fable
Without
Seen
Fables
Many
Rich
Simpler
Great
Half
Wandering
Always
Art
Wander
Life
Cannot
Limited
World
Littles
Masters
Better
Understood
Imaged

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

Image
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
Image
Only the dead can be forgiven But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
William Butler Yeats
Image
My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.
William Butler Yeats
Image
For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?
William Butler Yeats
Image
I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.
William Butler Yeats
Image
And the merry love the fiddle, and the merry love to dance.
William Butler Yeats
Image
People are responsible for their opinions, but Providence is responsible for their morals.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire, With your harmonious choir Encircle her I love and sing her into peace, That my old care may cease.
William Butler Yeats
Image
We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!
William Butler Yeats
Image
Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his verses to understand it.
William Butler Yeats
Image
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler Yeats
Image
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney Folk dance like a wave on the sea.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
William Butler Yeats
Image
A poet is a good citizen turned inside out.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.
William Butler Yeats
Image
If what I say resonates with you, it's merely because we're branches of the same tree.
William Butler Yeats
Image
My wretched dragon is perplexed.
William Butler Yeats