William Butler Yeats quotes

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”

— William Butler Yeats

“I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.”

— William Butler Yeats

“We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.”

— William Butler Yeats

“To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?”

— William Butler Yeats

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

— William Butler Yeats

“How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.”

— William Butler Yeats

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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!”

— William Butler Yeats

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”

— William Butler Yeats

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”

— William Butler Yeats

“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.”

— William Butler Yeats

“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.”

— William Butler Yeats