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What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live...?

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
Land
Dragon
Books
Guarded
Hope
Dragons
Artist
Paintings
Pearly
Art
Drawn
Dolphin
Live
Awake
Nymphs
Book
Sea
Wagons
Men
Painting
Dolphins

More quotes by 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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Why should I seek for love or study it? It is of God and passes human wit I study hatred with great diligence, For that's a passion in my own control, A sort of besom that can clear the soul Of everything that is not mind or sense.
William Butler Yeats
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Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all my ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
William Butler Yeats
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The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
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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What man does not understand, he fears and what he fears, he tends to destroy.
William Butler Yeats
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I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
William Butler Yeats
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And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
William Butler Yeats
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Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.
William Butler Yeats
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My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
William Butler Yeats
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When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.
William Butler Yeats
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Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.
William Butler Yeats
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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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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.
William Butler Yeats
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While on that old grey stone I sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate, Mankind inanimate phantasy.
William Butler Yeats
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I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men's ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.
William Butler Yeats
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For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.
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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When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.
William Butler Yeats
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I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
William Butler Yeats