William Butler Yeats
poet, playwright, writer, politician, mystic, astrologer
Read on Wikipedia1865 – 1939
All Quotes by William Butler Yeats
“How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.”
“Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.”
“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.”
“I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.”
“In dreams begins responsibility.”
“Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.”
“I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.”
“I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”
“Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.”
“I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.”
“We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.”
“If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.”
“And say my glory was I had such friends.”
“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.”
“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
“An intellectual hatred is the worst.”
“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.”
“Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”
“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.”
“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”
“But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?”
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”
“One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.”
“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”
“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.”
“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”
“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”
“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”
“A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”
“Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
“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.”
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
“Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.”
“Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.”
“I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.”
“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”
“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.”
“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?”
“Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.”
“To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.”
“I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'”
“You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.”
“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.”
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
“Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”
“Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.”
“The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.”
“This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.”
“Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while.”
“Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”
“Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.”
“I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.”
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”
“Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.”
“Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.”
“An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.”
“Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.”
“The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.”
“One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.”
“A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.”
“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”
“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
“Come away, O human child!”
“In dreams begins responsibility.”
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre”
“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”
“This melancholy London. I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.”
“I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all — the colleges I mean — like an opera.”
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
“I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal, — that is they have ceased to be self-centered, have given up their individuality.... The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.”
“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”
“The years like great black oxen tread the world,And I am broken by their passing feet.”
“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”
“The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.”
“The friends that have it I do wrongIt is myself that I remake.”
“In dreams begins responsibility.”
“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
“One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are half-asleep: "Hammer your thoughts into unity." For days I could think of nothing else, and for years I tested all I did by that sentence.”
“How many loved your moments of glad grace,”
“I agree about Shaw — he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.”
“This country will not always be an uncomfortable place for a country gentleman to live in, and it is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am afraid that Labour disagrees with me in that. On this matter I am a crusted Tory. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says "there is no wisdom without leisure."”
“I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”
“The official designs of the Government, especially its designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage, may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors of national taste.”
“Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.”
“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”
“The woods of Arcady are dead,Yet still she turns her restless head.”
“Words alone are certain good.”
“Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.”
“I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”
“Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;”
“Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”
“Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;”
“I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear it in the deep heart's core.”
“A pity beyond all tellingThreaten the head that I love.”
“The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,Had blotted out man’s image and his cry.”
“Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.”
“Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?And Usna's children died.”
“We and the labouring world are passing by:Lives on this lonely face.”
“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:Before her wandering feet.”
“The Land of Faery,Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.”
“Life moves out of a red flare of dreamsUntil old age bring the red flare again.”
“I would mould a world of fire and dewAnd nothing marred or old to do you wrong.”
“Land of Heart's Desire,But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.”
“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”
“And God stands winding His lonely horn,And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”
“I will find out where she has gone,The golden apples of the sun.”
“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,Folk dance like a wave of the sea.”
“I thought of your beauty, and this arrow,I could weep that the old is out of season.”
“I heard the old, old men say,Like the waters.”
“Sweetheart, do not love too long:Like an old song.”
“A line will take us hours maybe;The martyrs call the world.”
“It’s certain there is no fine thingYet now it seems an idle trade enough.”
“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.”
“I had a thought for no one's but your ears:As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.”
“Wine comes in at the mouthI look at you, and I sigh.”
“Though leaves are many, the root is one;Now I may wither into the truth.”
“I that have not your faith, how shall I know When neither soul nor body has been crossed.”
“Ah, that Time could touch a formCame when Time had touched her form.”
“You say, as I have often given tongueBut was there ever a dog that praised his fleas?”
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
“Have you made greatness your companion,The majesty that shuts his burning eye.”
“O love is the crooked thing,And the shadows eaten the moon.”
“Pardon, old fathers, if you still remainSomewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end.”
“Was it for this the wild geese spreadIt’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
“Now all the truth is out,That is most difficult.”
“Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.”
“I made my song a coatIn walking naked.”
“I would be ignorant as the dawnIgnorant and wanton as the dawn.”
“The trees are in their autumn beauty,Mirrors a still sky.”
“Unwearied still, lover by lover,Their hearts have not grown old.”
“Some burn damp faggots, others may consumeWhat made us dream that he could comb grey hair?”
“I had thought, seeing how bitter is that windOf that late death took all my heart for speech.”
“I know what wages beauty gives,With Landor and with Donne.”
“All shuffle there; all cough in ink;Did their Catullus walk that way?”
“When have I last looked onTheir angry tears, are gone.”
“I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.”
“Hands, do what you’re bid:Into its narrow shed.”
“We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mindLacking the countenance of our friends.”
“Minnaloushe creeps through the grassHis changing eyes.”
“Opinion is not worth a rush; And on the instant would grow wise.”
“They say such different things at school.”
“Nothing that we love over-muchIs ponderable to our touch.”
“Nor dread nor hope attend”
“I have met them at close of dayPolite meaningless words.”
“All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.”
“This other man I had dreamedA terrible beauty is born.”
“Hearts with one purpose aloneTo trouble the living stream.”
“Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all.”
“Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.”
“O when may it suffice?To murmur name upon name.”
“I write it out in a verse—A terrible beauty is born.”
“Imagining in excited reverieOut of the murderous innocence of the sea.”
“May she be granted beauty and yet notThat chooses right, and never find a friend.”
“It’s certain that fine women eatWhereby the Horn of plenty is undone.”
“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.”
“May she become a flourishing hidden treeNor but in merriment a quarrel.”
“To be choked with hateCan never tear the linnet from the leaf.”
“An intellectual hatred is the worst,For an old bellows full of angry wind?”
“All hatred driven hence,Or every bellows burst, be happy still.”
“Never had I moreThat more expected the impossible.”
“Does the imagination dwell the mostUpon a woman won or woman lost?”
“Much did I rage when young,It speeds the parting guest.”
“Locke sank into a swoon;Out of his side.”
“Being so caught up,Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?”
“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”
“Labour is blossoming or dancing whereHow can we know the dancer from the dance?”
“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.”
“The true faith discovered wasBy some peasant gospeller.”
“That is no country for old men. The youngMonuments of unaging intellect.”
“Consume my heart away; sick with desireInto the artifice of eternity.”
“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.”
“Once out of nature I shall never takeOf what is past, or passing, or to come.”
“Many ingenious lovely things are goneThat pitches common things about.”
“O what fine thought we had because we thoughtThat the worst rogues and rascals had died out.”
“All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,Into a ploughshare?”
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
“Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmareTo crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free.”
“”
“The night can sweat with terror as beforeWho are but weasels fighting in a hole.”
“But is there any comfort to be found?What more is there to say?”
“You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.”
“O but we dreamed to mendLearn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.”
“Come let us mock at the greatNor thought of the levelling wind.”
“I bring you with reverent hands”
“Come let us mock at the wise;And now but gape at the sun.”
“Come let us mock at the goodWind shrieked— and where are they?”
“Mock mockers after thatTraffic in mockery.”
“Odour of blood when Christ was slainAnd vain all Doric discipline.”
“Everything that man esteemsThe painter’s brush consumes his dreams.”
“Whatever flames upon the nightMan’s own resinous heart has fed.”
“Whether they knew or not,Or out of drunkard’s eye.”
“Only God, my dear,And not your yellow hair.”
“Swift has sailed into his rest;Served human liberty.”
“The intellect of man is forced to chooseA heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.”
“”
“The unpurged images of day recede;The fury and the mire of human veins.”
“At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flitAn agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.”
“Somewhere beyond the curtainTargeted, trod like Spring.”
“‘Fair and foul are near of kin,Nor grave nor bed denied.'”
“THOUGH you are in your shining days,”
“But Love has pitched his mansion inThat has not been rent.”
“What were all the world’s alarmsThat first dawn in Helen’s arms?”
“Speech after long silence; it is right,We loved each other and were ignorant.”
“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.”
“My Soul. Why should the imagination of a manDeliver from the crime of death and birth.”
“My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflowsBut when I think of that my tongue's a stone.”
“What matter if I live it all once more?He thinks that shape must be his shape?”
“I am content to live it all againA proud woman not kindred of his soul.”
“I am content to follow to its sourceEverything we look upon is blest.”
“All women dote upon an idle manOf children’s gratitude or woman’s love.”
“Test every work of intellect or faith,Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.”
“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
“I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'”
“My fiftieth year had come and gone,That I was blessed and could bless.”
“Things said or done long years ago,My conscience or my vanity appalled.”
“Seek out reality, leave things that seem.”
“God guard me from those thoughts men thinkThinks in a marrow-bone.”
“I pray — for word is outA foolish, passionate man.”
“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”
“Whence had they come,When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?”
“All perform their tragic play,That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia.”
“Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.”
“Heaven blazing into the head:It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.”
“Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.”
“If soul may look and body touch,Which is the more blest?”
“My temptation is quiet.Can make the truth known.”
“Grant me an old man’s frenzy,Till Truth obeyed his call.”
“Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.”
“You think it horrible that lust and rageWhat else have I to spur me into song?”
“You that would judge me, do not judge aloneAnd say my glory was I had such friends.”
“Down the mountain wallsCopulate in the foam.”
“Like a long-legged fly upon the streamHis mind moves upon silence.”
“A bloody and a sudden end,Leaves what man would lose.”
“Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.”
“Because there is safety in derisionOr seem plausible to a man of sense.”
“I have found nothing half so goodWhen I am unintelligible.”
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
“Players and painted stage took all my love,And not those things that they were emblems of.”
“Now that my ladder’s gone,In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”
“Irish poets, earn your trade,Base-born products of base beds.”
“Under bare Ben Bulben’s headIn Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.”
“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.”
“No marble, no conventional phrase;Horseman, pass by!”
“The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.”
“You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.”
“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
“All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.”
“Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.”
“The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.”
“I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'”
“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
“The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.”