William Butler Yeats Quotes on Truth
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Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
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The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head.
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Words alone are certain good.
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Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
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Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.
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You say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the like by these; But was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?
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I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.
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They say such different things at school.
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The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary. Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeller.
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O what fine thought we had because we thought That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
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'Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,' I cried. 'My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied.'
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But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.
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Seek out reality, leave things that seem.
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My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination, Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.
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Grant me an old man's frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.
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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 God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.