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And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey.
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
Butterfly
Optimism
Bird
Wisdom
Gloomy
Prey
More quotes by William Butler Yeats
yet it seems Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind, Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams, But the torn petals strew the garden plot And there's but common greenness after that.
William Butler Yeats
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind: I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler Yeats
Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude.
William Butler Yeats
The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.
William Butler Yeats
Tis the eternal law, That first in beauty should be first in might.
William Butler Yeats
When I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes that I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens.
William Butler Yeats
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
William Butler Yeats
That toil of growing up The ignominy of boyhood the distress Of boyhood changing into man The unfinished man and his pain.
William Butler Yeats
The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.
William Butler Yeats
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
William Butler Yeats
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
William Butler Yeats
The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.
William Butler Yeats
I--though heart might find relief Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief What seems most welcome in the tomb--play a predestined part. Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
William Butler Yeats
Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.
William Butler Yeats
Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked and where are they?
William Butler Yeats
Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy.
William Butler Yeats
All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay.
William Butler Yeats
The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
William Butler Yeats
If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.
William Butler Yeats
