Famous William Butler Yeats Quotations

First 1 Last 
"The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart."
by William Butler Yeats
"Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them."
by William Butler Yeats
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
by William Butler Yeats
"A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstinting has been naught."
by William Butler Yeats
"A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love."
by William Butler Yeats
"A shudder in the loins engenders thereThe broken wall, the burning roof and towerAnd Agamemnon dead."
by William Butler Yeats
"All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions"
by William Butler Yeats
"All shuffle there; all cough in ink;All wear the carpet with their shoes;All think what other people think;All know the man their neighbour knows,Lord, what would they sayDid their Catullus walk that way?"
by William Butler Yeats
"An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick."
by William Butler Yeats
"An intellectual hate is the worst."
by William Butler Yeats
"And say my glory was I had such friends."
by William Butler Yeats
"But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?"
by William Butler Yeats
"Caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of unaging intellect"
by William Butler Yeats
"Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire."
by William Butler Yeats
"Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live."
by William Butler Yeats
"Evil comes to all us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues."
by William Butler Yeats
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing."
by William Butler Yeats
"Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,And dream about the great and their pride;They have spoken against you everywhere,But weigh this song with the great and their pride;I made it out of a mouthful of air,Their children's children shall say they have lied."
by William Butler Yeats
"Have not all races had their first unity from a mythology that marries them to rock and hill?"
by William Butler Yeats
"I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magic illusions in the visions of truth in the depths of the minds when the eyes are closed."
by William Butler Yeats
"I at midnight by the clock may creep into your bed."
by William Butler Yeats
"I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth."
by William Butler Yeats
"I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
by William Butler Yeats
"I have spread my dreams under your feet"
by William Butler Yeats
"I think it better that at times like theseWe poets keep our mouths shut, for in truthWe have no gift to set a statesman right;He's had enough of meddling who can pleaseA young girl in the indolence of her youthOr an old man upon a winter's night."
by William Butler Yeats
"If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had Before the world was made."
by William Butler Yeats
"May God be praised for womanThat gives up all her mind,A man may find in no mana friendship of her kind."
by William Butler Yeats
"Oh, who could have foretoldThat the heart grows old?"
by William Butler Yeats
"Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution."
by William Butler Yeats
"One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end."
by William Butler Yeats
"Our own acts are isolated and one act does not buy absolution for another."
by William Butler Yeats
"Speak, speak, for underneath the cover thereThe sand is running from the upper glass,And when the last grain's through, I shall be lost."
by William Butler Yeats
"The friends that have it I do wrongWhen ever I remake a song,Should know what issue is at stake:It is myself that I remake."
by William Butler Yeats
"The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time."
by William Butler Yeats
"The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time"
by William Butler Yeats
"The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . ."
by William Butler Yeats
"The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the lonely of heart, And the lonely of heart is withered away"
by William Butler Yeats
"Their hearts are wild,As be the hearts of birds, till children come."
by William Butler Yeats
"Think where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends."
by William Butler Yeats
"Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people."
by William Butler Yeats
"Things fall apart the center cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity."
by William Butler Yeats
"Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day;"
by William Butler Yeats
"Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart."
by William Butler Yeats
"We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us."
by William Butler Yeats
"We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason outselves into it."
by William Butler Yeats
"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."
by William Butler Yeats
"You shall go with me, newly-married bride,And gaze upon a merrier multitude.White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,Feachra of the hurtling form, and himWho is the ruler of the Western Host,Finvara, and their Land of Heart's Desire.Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,But joy is wisdom, time an endless song."
by William Butler Yeats
"The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober."
by William Butler Yeats
"I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind."
by William Butler Yeats
"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned."
by William Butler Yeats
"How can we know the dancer from the dance?"
by William Butler Yeats
"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
by William Butler Yeats
"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."
by 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."
by William Butler Yeats
"Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!"
by Tombstone of William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and playwright
"You shall go with me, newly-married bride, And gaze upon a merrier multitude. White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds, Feachra of the hurtling form, and him Who is the ruler of the Western Host, Finvara, and their Land of Heart's Desire. Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song."
by William Butler Yeats
"Life is a long preparation for something that never happens."
by William Butler Yeats
"But I being poor have only my dreams. I have laid my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
by 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."
by 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."
by William Butler Yeats
"'Put the chair upon the grass: Bring Rody and his hounds, That I may contented pass From these earthly bounds.'"
by William Butler Yeats
"'Old lovers yet may have All that time denied..."
by William Butler Yeats
"'Not to die on the straw at home, Those hands to close these eyes,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"'If little planned is little sinned But little need the grave distress...."
by William Butler Yeats
"'I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"'... Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.'"
by William Butler Yeats
"A drunkard is a dead man And all dead men are drunk."
by William Butler Yeats
"A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"A statesman is an easy man, He tells his lies by rote;..."
by William Butler Yeats
"A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?"
by William Butler Yeats
"All know that all the dead in the world about that place are stuck And that should mother seek her son she'd have but little luck..."
by William Butler Yeats
"All the heavy days are over; Leave the body's coloured pride Underneath the grass and clover, With the feet laid side by side."
by William Butler Yeats
"Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent..."
by William Butler Yeats
"And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text..."
by William Butler Yeats
"And if joy were not on the earth, There were an end of change and birth,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"And I that have not your faith, how shall I know That in the blinding light beyond the grave..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed:..."
by William Butler Yeats
"But all is changed, that high horse riderless, Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Because the priest must have like every dog his day Or keep us all awake with baying at the moon,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!"
by William Butler Yeats
"But popular rage, Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down...."
by William Butler Yeats
"But nothing satisfied the fool But my dear Mary Moore,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"But if when anyone died Came keeners hoarser than rooks, He bade them give over their keening; For he was a man of books."
by William Butler Yeats
"Come, let me sing into your ear; Those dancing days are gone,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood..."
by William Butler Yeats
"But where is laid the sailor John That so many lands had known,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul,"
by William Butler Yeats
"Cried out the whole night long, Crying amid the glittering sea,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;..."
by William Butler Yeats
"For certain minutes at the least That crafty demon and that loud beast..."
by William Butler Yeats
"Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content."
by William Butler Yeats
"From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye...."
by William Butler Yeats
"From man's blood-sodden heart are sprung Those branches of the night and day..."
by William Butler Yeats
"For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular and full of influence,..."
by William Butler Yeats
"For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave."
by William Butler Yeats
"Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood,..."
by William Butler Yeats


Hire a Writer