William Butler Yeats quotes

 quotes - Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

— William Butler Yeats

 quotes - There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.

“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”

— William Butler Yeats

 quotes - Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”

— William Butler Yeats

 quotes - The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.

“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

— William Butler Yeats

“A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.”

— William Butler Yeats

“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”

— William Butler Yeats

“And say my glory was I had such friends.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.”

— William Butler Yeats

“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

— William Butler Yeats

“Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.”

— William Butler Yeats

“An intellectual hatred is the worst.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.”

— William Butler Yeats

“I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.”

— William Butler Yeats

“I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.”

— William Butler Yeats

“The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“In dreams begins responsibility.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats