Quote

What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?

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
Artist
Dream
World
Dissipation
Portion
Awakened
Portions
Despair
Common

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

Image
Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.
William Butler Yeats
Image
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, 'To be born a woman is to know- Although they do not talk of it at school - That we must labor to be beautiful.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
A poet is a good citizen turned inside out.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.
William Butler Yeats
Image
A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.
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
Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
William Butler Yeats
Image
An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?
William Butler Yeats
Image
I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent?
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
I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?
William Butler Yeats
Image
What man does not understand, he fears and what he fears, he tends to destroy.
William Butler Yeats