Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The Irishman sustains himself during brief periods of joy by the knowledge that tragedy is just around the corner.
I had a chair at every hearth, When no one turned to see, With 'Look at that old fellow there, 'And who may he be?
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.
I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.
O heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake.
I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.
What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?
Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer.
I agree about Shaw - he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.
The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.
In mockery I have set A powerful emblem up, And sing it rhyme upon rhyme In mockery of a time Half dead at the top.
But Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.
The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then.
I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone.
There is no release In a bodkin or disease, Nor can there be a work so great As that which cleans man's dirty slate.
Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit.
Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay.
What were all the world's alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms?
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.
What if the Church and the State Are the mob that howls at the door! Wine shall run thick to the end, Bread taste sour.
All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other's, We were so much at one.
All the wild-witches, those most notable ladies For all their broom-sticks and their tears, Their angry tears, are gone.
It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.
In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.
I have nothing more to give you than my heart. Spanish saying Hearts are not to be had as a gift hearts are to be earned.
A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart.
We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love
While on that old grey stone I sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate, Mankind inanimate phantasy.
Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.
I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.
True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.
Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.
A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.
And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.
I pray-for fashion's word is out And prayer comes round again- That I may seem, though I die old, A foolish, passionate man.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath, Comes to destroy All those antinomies Of day and night.
Pale brows, still hands and dim hair, I had a beautiful friend And dreamed that the old despair Would end in love in the end.
Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.
On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's self.