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I summon to the winding ancient stair Set all your mind upon the steep ascent

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
Steep
Stairs
Thoughtful
Ancient
Eternity
Stair
Upon
Winding
Mind
Summon
Thinking
Ascent

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then.
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The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves The brilliant moon and all the milky sky And all that famous harmony of leaves Had blotted out man's image and his cry.
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John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought All that we did, all that we said or sang Must come from contact with the soil, from that Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
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Fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet high.
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When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, suddenly I meet your face.
William Butler Yeats
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How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms!
William Butler Yeats
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Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.
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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An intellectual hate is the worst.
William Butler Yeats
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The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the lonely of heart, And the lonely of heart is withered away.
William Butler Yeats
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I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do, He died upon the gallows But that is nothing new.
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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When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker grow merry over him when they meet his work by chance.
William Butler Yeats
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I have nothing but the embittered sun Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.
William Butler Yeats
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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.
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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While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof, His Morning and his Night disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew.
William Butler Yeats
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When a man grows old his joy Grows more deep day after day, His empty heart is full at length But he has need of all that strength Because of the increasing Night That opens her mystery and fright.
William Butler Yeats
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I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.
William Butler Yeats
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One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.
William Butler Yeats