W.B. Yeats: Trending quotes (page 4)

“Land of Heart's Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.”

W.B. Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire

Source: The Land of Heart's Desire (1894), Lines 373–375

Wisdom , Beauty , Time , Heart

“O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 2
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

“Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Olivia Shakespear (24 March 1927)

Fight

“Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

The Tower, II, st. 13
The Tower (1928)

Imagination

“A bloody and a sudden end,
Gunshot or a noose,
For Death who takes what man would keep,
Leaves what man would lose.”

W.B. Yeats

John Kinsella’s Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1520/', st. 1
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Death

“Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

II, st. 1
The Tower (1928), Two Songs From a Play http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1741/

Christ

“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Lady Elizabeth Pelham (4 January 1939))

Truth

“I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone:
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey’s end
With Landor and with Donne.”

W.B. Yeats

To A Young Beauty http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1728/, st. 3
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Life , Beauty , Fools , Winter

“The friends that have it I do wrong
Whenever I remake a song
Should know what issue is at stake,
It is myself that I remake.”

W.B. Yeats

The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, II, preliminary poem (1908)

“Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.”

W.B. Yeats

Lapis Lazuli, st. 5
Last Poems (1936-1939)

“My temptation is quiet.
Here at life’s end
Neither loose imagination,
Nor the mill of the mind
Consuming its rag and bone,
Can make the truth known.”

W.B. Yeats

An Acre of Grass http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1438/, st. 2
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Life , Truth , Imagination

“I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 1
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/

Housing

“The true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeller.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

Wisdom http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1759/
The Tower (1928)

Faith , Painting

“To be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there’s no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 7
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/

Hate , Tear , Evil , Chance

“Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”

W.B. Yeats

The Great Day http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1626/
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Change

“I agree about Shaw — he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to George William Russell (1 July 1921)

“All shuffle there; all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?”

W.B. Yeats

The Scholars http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1682/, st. 2
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

People , Shoe , Way , Thinking

“If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?”

W.B. Yeats

The Lady's Second Song http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1639/, st. 3
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Soul

“Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of Silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.”

W.B. Yeats

The Magi http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1652/
Responsibilities (1914)

Hope , Appearance , Time , Painting

“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”

W.B. Yeats

Letter to Frederick J. Gregg (undated, Sligo, late summer, 1886)

World , Business , Heart