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Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.
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
Ideas
Intended
Even
Accident
Something
Breakfast
Never
Accidents
Incoherence
Complete
Bundle
Poet
Bundles
Idea
Reborn
Seems
Sits
More quotes by William Butler Yeats
I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.
William Butler Yeats
O heart the winds have shaken, the unappeasable host Is comelier than candles at Mother Mary's feet.
William Butler Yeats
I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
William Butler Yeats
We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love
William Butler Yeats
I gave what other women gave That stepped out of their clothes But when this soul, its body off Naked to naked goes, He it has found shall find therein What none other knows.
William Butler Yeats
I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.
William Butler Yeats
Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.
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 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
It's certain there are trout somewhere - And maybe I shall take a trout - but I do not seem to care.
William Butler Yeats
... What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?
William Butler Yeats
Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
William Butler Yeats
We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.
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
All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right.
William Butler Yeats
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me.
William Butler Yeats
Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?
William Butler Yeats
But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
William Butler Yeats
Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when the abounding hedges ring Declare that winter's best of all: And after that there's nothing good Because the spring time has not come- Not know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.
William Butler Yeats
A poet is a good citizen turned inside out.
William Butler Yeats
