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I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag.

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
Men
Clock
Pretence
Sticks
Maid
Sing
Maids
Whether
Noon
Upon
Redemption
Away
Drop
Thought
Stick
May
Aging
Leans

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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O sweet everlasting Voices, be still Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more.
William Butler Yeats
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I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
William Butler Yeats
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What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
William Butler Yeats
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I have no question: It is enough, I know what fixed the station Of star and cloud. And knowing all, I cry. . . .
William Butler Yeats
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What do we know but that we face one another in this place?
William Butler Yeats
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Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.
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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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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Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.
William Butler Yeats
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I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.
William Butler Yeats
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Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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Come near I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
William Butler Yeats
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It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.
William Butler Yeats
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The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
William Butler Yeats
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If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had Before the world was made.
William Butler Yeats