I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core. William Butler Yeats More Quotes by William Butler Yeats More Quotes From William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 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. William Butler Yeats passionate blood fall When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep. William Butler Yeats dream beautiful retirement Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible. William Butler Yeats ethics cry doe We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity. William Butler Yeats faith doubt men I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought. William Butler Yeats myth fancy men I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth. William Butler Yeats hate earth people An intellectual hatred is the worst. William Butler Yeats social-justice hatred intellectual Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry. William Butler Yeats casts mind may 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. William Butler Yeats fate hate fighting Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward. William Butler Yeats progress journey numbers Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight. William Butler Yeats lovely delight kind An Irish Airman foresees his Death 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 country 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 man, 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. William Butler Yeats cheer lonely country Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. William Butler Yeats kissing moon hands Man can embody truth but he cannot know it. William Butler Yeats truth knows men All through the years of our youth William Butler Yeats unity lovers years Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them. William Butler Yeats disrespect catholic past One had a lovely face, William Butler Yeats lovely poetry two The chief imagination of Christendom, William Butler Yeats eye imagination mind Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all my ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. William Butler Yeats rags heart lying Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. William Butler Yeats byzantium nature past
