Quotes By Author: William Butler Yeats

“PoliticsHow can I, that girl standing there,My attention fixOn Roman or on RussianOr on Spanish politics?Yet here’s a travelled man that knowsWhat he talks about,And there’s a politicianThat has read and thought,And maybe what they say is trueOf war and war’s alarms,But O that I were young againAnd held her in my arms!”

“I bring you with reverent handsThe books of my numberless dreams.”

“Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe 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 everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.”

“Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

“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.”

“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf 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.”