Quotes from W. B. Yeats

Jacob Bronowski

Let the minor genius go his light way and enjoy his life - the great nature cannot so live, he is never really in holiday mood, even though he often plucks flowers by the wayside and ties them into knots and garlands like little children and lays out on a sunny morning.

One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.

For he comes, the human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.

We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love

We all to some extent meet again and again the same people and certainly in some cases form a kind of family of two or three or more persons who come together life after life until all passionate relations are exhausted, the child of one life the husband, wife, brother, sister of the next. Sometimes, however, a single relationship will repeat itself, turning its revolving wheel again and again.

How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them. But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-half of their fascination. Love with them never grows weary, nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet.

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery Can leave the mother, murdered at her door, To crawl in her own blood, and go scott-free; The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice

That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon?falls, the mackerel?crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.

after twenty centuries of stony sleep, what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?" W.B. Yeats - from 'The Second Coming

How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;" ? W. B. Yeats

The Cloths of Heaven Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light; I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears; / That you were beautiful, and that I strove / To love you in the old high way of love;

I did not, but i saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.

Haydi yürüyelim, masal anlat?c?lar?, yüreÄŸin özlediÄŸi yem her ne ise ona sar?lal?m ve korkmayal?m. Her ÅŸey canl?, her ÅŸey gerçek ve yeryüzü ayaklar?m?z alt?ndaki y?k?nt? sadece.

BaÅŸlar?nda saç yerine tavuskuÅŸu tüyleri olan ruhlar; bir alev çevriminden bir y?ld?za doÄŸru giden hayalet; ruhun simgesi olan ve yar?ya kadar eliyle gizlediÄŸi yanardöner bir küreyle geçen ruh. Ama hep insan?n k?r?lgan umutlar?na yönelen ÅŸefkatli bir öÄŸüdün gizlediÄŸi renk yeÄŸniliÄŸi alt?nda.

Se necesita más coraje para escudriñar los rincones oscuros de tu propia alma que para luchar en un campo de batalla.

I will arise and go now. To a place called Innisfree. And I shall have some peace there, For peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning To where the cricket sings

Nas?l da ölümdür müzik SevdiÄŸin ÅŸark? söylerken.

We that have done and thought, That have thought and done, Must ramble, and thin out Like milk spilt on a stone.

To keep happy seems like walking on stilts. When one is tired, one falls off.