William Butler Yeats Quotations | Page 4

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.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,So let her think opinions are accursed.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born

We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity.

And learn that the best thing is To change my loves while dancing And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.

He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.

The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about.

Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power.