William Butler Yeats Quotations

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

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.

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.

Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

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

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

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

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

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

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

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

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

Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

And say my glory was I had such friends.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

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.

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.

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

Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unbound, Your breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep

When we are young we long to tread a way none have trod before

The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober.

When two close kindred meetWhat better than call a dance?

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves among silence

O love is the crooked thing,There is nobody wise enoughTo find out all that is in it.

Oh, who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

May she be granted beauty and yet notBeauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,Being made beautiful overmuch,Consider beauty a sufficient end,Lose natural kindness and maybeThe heart-revealing intimacyThat chooses right, and never find a friend.

May God be praised for womanThat gives up all her mind,A man may find in no mana friendship of her kind.

My fiftieth year had come and gone,I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,And open book and empty cupOn the marble table-top.

Of conflicts with others we make retorica, of conflicts with ourselves poetry

Now that my ladder's goneI must lie down where all ladders startIn the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

No expectation fails there,No pleasing habit ends,No man grows old, no girl grows cold,But friends walk by friends.

No expectation fails there, No pleasing habit ends, No man grows old, no girl grows cold, But friends walk by friends.

Nothing but sweetness can remain when hearts are full of their own sweetness.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,And rich men grown to be poor again,And I am running to Paradise.

Only God, my dear,Could love you for yourself aloneAnd not your yellow hair.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots

I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swing his lantern higher.

I'd as soon listen to dried peas in a bladder, as listen to your thoughts.

I am content to live it all againAnd yet again, if it be life to pitchInto the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,A blind man battering blind men.

I bear a burden that might well tryMen that do all by rule,And what can IThat am a wandering-witted foolBut pray to God that He easeMy great responsibilities?

Cast a cold eyeOn life, on deathHorseman, pass by!

Caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of unaging intellect

Because of that great nobleness of hersThe fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,Burns but more clearly.

I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.'

we can make our minds so still like water. That beings gather about us to see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even with a fiercer life because of silence.

What do you think of when alone at night?Do not the things your mothers spoke about,Before they took the candle from the bedside,Rush up into the mind and master it,Till you believe in them against your will?

For men improve with the years;And yet, and yet,Is this my dream, or the truth?

One man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot,Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!The beggars have changed places but the lash goes on.

He knows death to the bone --Man has created death.