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William Butler Yeats Quotes


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

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

In dreams begins responsibility.

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

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

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

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