Quote

Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare.

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
Life
Small
Consume
Combustible
World
Gone
Bare
Chimney
Though
Burn
Flare
Turns
Finished
Chimneys
Black
Entire
Dried
Others
Room
Straw
May
Rooms
Straws
Work
Turn
Damp
Faggots

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All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low.
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We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity.
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What man does not understand, he fears and what he fears, he tends to destroy.
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Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.
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Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
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If Michael, leader of God's host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post He would his deeds forget.
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Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.
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On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
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How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?
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Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
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I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
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Style, personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.
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I knew that I had seen, had seen at last That girl my unremembering nights hold fast Or else my dreams that fly If I should rub an eye, And yet in flying fling into my meat A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat.
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The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
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Man's life is thought, And he, despite his terror, cannot cease Ravening through century after century, Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come Into the desolation of reality.
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What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.
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I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.
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I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Invar Amargin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away.
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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.
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He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.
William Butler Yeats