W.B. Yeats quote: "I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away....the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them."

In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns a...
W.B. YEATS

The Cat and the Moon

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top...
W.B. YEATS

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For ...
W.B. YEATS

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run...
W.B. YEATS

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul...
W.B. YEATS

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
W.B. YEATS

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

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall ...
W.B. YEATS

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
W.B. YEATS

For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moo...
W.B. YEATS

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue an...
W.B. YEATS

I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.
W.B. YEATS

Politics

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman ...
W.B. YEATS

One loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life u...
W.B. YEATS

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true; W.B. YEATS

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of jo...
W.B. YEATS

The host is rushing 'twixt day and night,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caoilte...
W.B. YEATS

The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is dou...
W.B. YEATS

I went out to the hazel wood
because a fire was in my head
cut and peeled a hazel wand
W.B. YEATS

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body...
W.B. YEATS

Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me
("The...
W.B. YEATS

How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!
W.B. YEATS

Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For...
W.B. YEATS

Who Goes With Fergus?

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's ...
W.B. YEATS

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by ...
W.B. YEATS

Ephemera

Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow un...
W.B. YEATS

There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
W.B. YEATS

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work.
W.B. YEATS

In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli
Bodies of holy men and women exude
Miraculous oil, odour...
W.B. YEATS

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding b...
W.B. YEATS

We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
W.B. YEATS

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of th...
W.B. YEATS

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to t...
W.B. YEATS

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little s...
W.B. YEATS

God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone.
W.B. YEATS

Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold...
W.B. YEATS

Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I ca...
W.B. YEATS

ROSE of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled W.B. YEATS

I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if...
W.B. YEATS

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Hav...
W.B. YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, W.B. YEATS

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those who are not entirely beautiful.
W.B. YEATS

God spreads the heavens above us like great wings
And gives a little round of deeds and days, W.B. YEATS

I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. YEATS

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood...
W.B. YEATS

An Irish Airman foresees his Death

I Know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere amon...
W.B. YEATS

The Scholars
"Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald he...
W.B. YEATS

I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate,...
W.B. YEATS

A lonely impulse of delight
W.B. YEATS

Jonathan Swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbor as himself.
W.B. YEATS

I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have gro...
W.B. YEATS

Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear....
W.B. YEATS

There is another world, but it is in this one.
W.B. YEATS

Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.
W.B. YEATS

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,<...
W.B. YEATS

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women ...
W.B. YEATS

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire
W.B. YEATS

All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
W.B. YEATS

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should i...
W.B. YEATS

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

What can be explained is not poetry.
W.B. YEATS

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

I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay ...
W.B. YEATS

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

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.
W.B. YEATS

When You Are Old"

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by...
W.B. YEATS

In dreams begin responsibilities.
W.B. YEATS

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
W.B. YEATS

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

A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the ...
W.B. YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly...
W.B. YEATS

An intellectual hatred is the worst.
W.B. YEATS

Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it ca...
W.B. YEATS

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread sof...
W.B. YEATS

To A Squirrel At Kyle-Na-No

Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the s...
W.B. YEATS

Wine enters through the mouth,
Love, the eyes.
I raise the glass to my mouth,
I look ...
W.B. YEATS

There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did ...
W.B. YEATS

When they had finished they made me take notes of whatever conversation they had quoted, so that I m...
W.B. YEATS

And now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, O brother abbot, and upon your father and your mother...
W.B. YEATS

I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams.
W.B. YEATS

Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the d...
W.B. YEATS

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work
And if it ...
W.B. YEATS

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

Though leaves are many, the root is one,
Through all ...
W.B. YEATS

And softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.
W.B. YEATS

I was dancing with an immortal august woman, who had black lilies in her hair, and her dreamy gestur...
W.B. YEATS

...nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness.
W.B. YEATS

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness.
They have all mad...
W.B. YEATS

To an Isle in the Water

Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in t...
W.B. YEATS

What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident? And are there ...
W.B. YEATS

When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars.
W.B. YEATS

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
W.B. YEATS

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
W.B. YEATS

My wretched dragon is perplexed.
W.B. YEATS

By the Hospital Lane goes the 'Faeries Path.' Every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, fr...
W.B. YEATS

He had many strange sights to keep him cheerful or to make him sad. I asked him had he ever seen the...
W.B. YEATS

Fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are, sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been t...
W.B. YEATS

A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followe...
W.B. YEATS

O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and...
W.B. YEATS

Round these men stories tended to group themselves, sometimes deserting more ancient heroes for the ...
W.B. YEATS

Just do it. Now.
M. YEATS

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

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

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

I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that Willia...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man cravin...
J. B. YEATS

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

Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetr...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God the herdsman treads them on behind, and I a...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almo...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -W. B. Yeats.
W. B. YEATS

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made wha...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar tho...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Personality is born out of pain. It is the fire shut up in the flint.
J. B. YEATS

The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take the ...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unsti...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude.
White-armed Nual...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort tha...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

To me the charm of an encyclopedia is that it knows and I needn't.
FRANCIS YEATS BROWN

Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covere...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony ...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O. When may it suffice?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed t...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

A DEEP-SWORN VOW Others because you did not keep That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine; Ye...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opini...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

In dreams begin responsibility.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

In dreams begins responsibility.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious m...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

Art bids us touch and taste and hear and see the world, and shrinks from what Blake calls mathematic...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

The land of fairy, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and w...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

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

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

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of jo...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Befo...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.
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

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

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

How can we know the dancer from the dance?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

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

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

Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric; of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry.
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 w...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart. -William Butler Yeats.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take th...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, becau...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man cravin...
J. B. YEATS

Personality is born out of pain. It is the fire shut up in the flint. - Letters to His Son, W. B. ...
J. B. YEATS

Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man cra...
J. B. YEATS

All empty sould tend toward extreme opinions.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

We . . . are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Burke; we are the people of Swift,...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

And say my glory was I had such friends.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and ...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I call on those that call me son,Grandson, or great-grandson,On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When two close kindred meetWhat better than call a dance?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

We were the last romantics -- chose for themeTraditional sanctity and loveliness.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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

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

Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my moth...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

W.B. Yeats

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