William Butler Yeats Quotes

No man has ever lived that had enough of children's gratitude or woman's love.

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life or of the work.

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

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye That's all we shall know for truth Before we...

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly becaus...

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my ...

Only that which does not teach which does not cry out which does not condescend which does not ex...

She bid me take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree But I being young and foolish with her ...

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

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

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

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

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

I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him...

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.

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

Wine comes in at the mouth and love comes in at the eye that's all we shall know for truth before w...

You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some ...

Florence Farr once said to me "If we could say to ourselves with sincerity 'this passing moment i...

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

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

Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy whe...

All empty souls tend to extreme opinion.

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

In dreams begins responsibility.

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

Joy is the will which labors which overcomes obstacles which knows triumph.

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

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

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage i...

A statesman is an easy man He tells his lies by rote A journalist makes up his lies And takes you ...

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

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

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's mor...

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

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambas...

I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to...

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

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given ...

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

Style personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-fac...

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

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we...

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