Quotes from William Butler Yeats

A Deep Sworn Vow Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; Yet always when I look death in the face, When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, Suddenly I meet your face.

Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.

Weaving olden dances; mingling hands and mingling glances.

I shall find the dark grow luminous, the void fruitful when I understand I have nothing, that the ringers in the tower have appointed for the hymen of the soul a passing bell.

I have believed the best of every man, and find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best or even a good man swing his lantern higher.

One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or a dog that howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many things that we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.

Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.

The land of fairy, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone It's with O' Leary in the grave (September 1913)

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

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.

The fascination of what's difficult has dried the sap out of my veins and rent spontaneous joy and natural content out of my heart.

The living can assist the imagination of the dead...

Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good.

O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with deceit! ("The Crucifixion Of The Outcast")

And now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, O brother abbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and your grandmother, nd upon all your relations.' Is he cursing in rhyme?' He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his curse.' ("The Crucifixion Of The Outcast")

I have believed the best of every man.

But he heard high up in the air A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay.

When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And someone called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossoms in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air. . . .

I heard an old religious man But yesternight declare That he had found a text to prove That only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.

Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

I was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl -- a cousin I think -- having waited under a group of trees in the avenue, where she knew [my grandfather] would pass near four o'clock on the way to his dinner, said to him, 'If I were you and you were a little girl, I would give you a doll.