W.B. Yeats: Quotes about love

W.B. Yeats was Irish poet and playwright. Explore interesting quotes on love.

W.B. Yeats: 510 quotes285 likes

“I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love”

W.B. Yeats

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1441/ The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) Context: I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

“I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.”

W.B. Yeats

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“Love comes in at the eye.”

W.B. Yeats

“For everything that's lovely is
but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.”

W.B. Yeats

Never Give All The Heart http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1545/ In The Seven Woods (1904) Source: Poems Context: Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

“Only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

For Anne Gregory http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1483/, st. 3 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

“I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind
That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind
All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved
Or boyish intellect approved,
With some appropriate commentary on each;
Until imagination brought
A fitter welcome; but a thought
Of that late death took all my heart for speech.”

W.B. Yeats

In Memory Of Major Robert Gregory, st. 12
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

“Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.”

W.B. Yeats

The Circus Animals' Desertion http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1603/, II, st. 3. Last Poems (1936-1939)

“Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

Towards Break of Day http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1740/, st. 3 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)

“And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”

W.B. Yeats

Into The Twilight http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1519/, st. 4 The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

“Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”

W.B. Yeats

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time
The Rose (1893)

“O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.”

W.B. Yeats

Brown Penny http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1454/ The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

“All women dote upon an idle man
Although their children need a rich estate.
No man has ever lived that had enough
Of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

III, st. 1 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), Vacillation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1751/