Quote

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

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
Needs
Land
Craft
Readier
Things
Hand
Crafts
Tempt
Time
Face
Driven
Verse
Faces
Worse
Seeming
Woman
Poet
Verses
Comes
Fool
Toil
Hands
Youth
Accustomed
Nothing
Poetry
Distraction

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

Image
The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
William Butler Yeats
Image
For wisdom is the property of the dead, A something incompatible with life and power, Like everything that has the stain of blood, A property of the living but no stain Can come upon the visage of the moon When it has looked in glory from a cloud.
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
Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
William Butler Yeats
Image
What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?
William Butler Yeats
Image
Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried And fought with the invulnerable tide.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
William Butler Yeats
Image
An age is the reversal of an age: When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone, We lived like men that watch a painted stage. What matter for the scene, the scene once gone: It had not touched our lives.
William Butler Yeats
Image
And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?
William Butler Yeats
Image
I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
William Butler Yeats
Image
I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no moreSoon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
William Butler Yeats
Image
There is no deformity But saves us from a dream.
William Butler Yeats