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We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.

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
Dreams
Tarnished
Living
Ivory
Hands
Sigh
Dream
Smooth
Ever
Mirror
World
Fallen
Mirrors
Breathe

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.
William Butler Yeats
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Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering.
William Butler Yeats
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All think what other people think All know the man their neighbor knows. Lord, what would they say Did their Catullus walk that way?
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You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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So long as all is ordered for attack, and that alone, leaders will instinctively increase the number of enemies that they may give their followers something to do.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is
William Butler Yeats
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Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
William Butler Yeats
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In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion into confusion or dullness.
William Butler Yeats
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Nothing that we love overmuch Is ponderable to our touch.
William Butler Yeats
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My soul had found All happiness in its own cause or ground. Godhead on Godhead in sexual spasm begot Godhead. Some shadow fell. My soul forgot Those amorous cries that out of quiet come And must the common round of day resume.
William Butler Yeats
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Everything in nature is resurrection.
William Butler Yeats
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Though leaves are many, the root is one Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.
William Butler Yeats
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Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
William Butler Yeats
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Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
William Butler Yeats
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THOUGH you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time's bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes.
William Butler Yeats
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The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.
William Butler Yeats
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rhetoric is will doing the work of imagination.
William Butler Yeats
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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. . . .
William Butler Yeats