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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.

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
Art
Daily
Patients
Bade
Form
Patient
Secrecy
Talismans
Part
Forms
Magician
Magicians
Made
Mere
Symbolic
Portraiture
Essence
Guard
Ponder
Holy
Colour
Colours
Divine
Complexes
Pondering
Purpose
Complex
Medieval

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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The falcon cannot hear the falconer
William Butler Yeats
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Only the dead can be forgiven But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
William Butler Yeats
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When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream.
William Butler Yeats
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He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.
William Butler Yeats
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Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion.
William Butler Yeats
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O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
William Butler Yeats
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It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.
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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Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by
William Butler Yeats
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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
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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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The living can assist the imagination of the dead.
William Butler Yeats
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Because of something told under the famished horn Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day, To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay, Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
William Butler Yeats
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I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.
William Butler Yeats
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While man can still his body keep Wine or love drug him to sleep, Waking he thanks the Lord that he Has body and its stupidity.
William Butler Yeats
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What can be shown? What true love be? All could be known or shown If Time were but gone.
William Butler Yeats
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Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
William Butler Yeats
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All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs of my fool-driven land Now nothing but comes readier to the hand Than this accustomed toil.
William Butler Yeats
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Things fall apart the center cannot hold.
William Butler Yeats
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Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.
William Butler Yeats