William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeatswas an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1865
CitySandymount, Ireland
CountryIreland
Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.
The poet is a good citizen turned inside out.
Not a man alive has so much luck that he can play with it.
Hammer your thoughts into unity.
It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
We are closed in, and the key is turned / On our uncertainty...
The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!
The living can assist the imagination of the dead...
The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
Florence Farr once said to me, If we could say to ourselves, with sincerity, 'this passing moment is as good as any I shall ever know,' we could die upon the instant and be united with God.
What can I but enumerate old themes?
The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.
O heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head You'd know the folly of being comforted.