If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Poet and sculptor, do the work, / Nor let the modish painter shirk — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but out of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Poetry and music I have banished, But the stupidity Of root, shoot, blossom or clay Makes no demand. I bend my body… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
One had a lovely face, And two or three had charm, But charm and face were in vain. Because the mountain grass… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I have heard that hysterical women say They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow, Of poets that are always gay — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
All think what other people think; All know the man their neighbor knows. Lord, what would they say Did their Catullus walk… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Some moralist or mythological poet Compares the solitary soul to a swan; I am satisfied with that, Satisfied if a troubled mirror… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: One time it was a woman's face, or worse-- The seeming needs… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
When Walt Whitman writes in seeming defiance of tradition, he needs tradition for his protection, for the butcher and the baker and… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
THAT crazed girl improvising her music. Her poetry, dancing upon the shore, Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me “weak” or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“ The Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“I said: 'A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, Our stitching and unstitching… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Longfellow has his popularity, in the main, because he tells his story or his idea so that one needs nothing but his… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
