Quote

In mockery I have set A powerful emblem up, And sing it rhyme upon rhyme In mockery of a time Half dead at the top.

William Butler Yeats

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Dead
Powerful
Emblem
Emblems
Half
Symbolism
Upon
Mockery
Time
Towers
Rhyme
Sing

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

Image
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
Image
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
Image
One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious,of many things we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Though leaves are many, the root is one.
William Butler Yeats
Image
on the instant clamorous eaves, A climbing moon upon an empty sky, And all that lamentation of the leaves, Could but compose man's image and his cry.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind's eye than any face But that of Christ.
William Butler Yeats
Image
The living can assist the imagination of the dead.
William Butler Yeats
Image
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon I hail the superhuman I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
William Butler Yeats
Image
Words alone are certain good.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.
William Butler Yeats
Image
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
Image
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
William Butler Yeats
Image
I thought of rhyme alone, For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble And make the daylight sweet once more.
William Butler Yeats
Image
You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age They were not such a plague when I was young What else have I to spur me into song?
William Butler Yeats
Image
Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk
William Butler Yeats
Image
Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
William Butler Yeats
Image
. . . you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death
William Butler Yeats
Image
My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theater business, management of men.
William Butler Yeats
Image
If soul my look and body touch, Which is the more blest?
William Butler Yeats