William Butler Yeats famous quotes

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Buckets #Hills #Companion

There is another world, but it is in this one.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #World #Chaos

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

#Dream #Littles #Bags

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Wise #Teamwork

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Graduation #Education

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Life #Friendship

I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Men #Fancy #Myth

One man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Love #Men #Soul

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Passionate #Conviction #Parliament

Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Joy #Overcoming #Triumph

The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Men #Poetry #Visionaries

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Temptation #Soul #Positive Energy

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.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Men #History #Finding Yourself

By logic and reason we die hourly; by imagination we live.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Imagination #Logic #Reason

We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Taste #Reason #Feels

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wise #Wisdom #Suffering

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

#Wedding #Stars #Memories

An intellectual hatred is the worst.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Hatred #Intellectual #Social Justice

We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Poetry #Argument #Quarrels

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.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Believe #Men #Swings

What can be explained is not poetry.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Poetry

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, 'To be born a woman is to know- Although they do not talk of it at school - That we must labor to be beautiful.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beautiful #Sweet #School

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Lasts #Beast #Hours

I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember
-- William Butler Yeats

#Dream #Oxford #Doe

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Food #Drinking #Men

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

#Anger #Getting High #Certain

In dreams begins responsibility.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Life #Dream

Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Guests #Tongue #World

Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Love #Eye #Wine

All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Soul #Opinion #Empty

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
-- William Butler Yeats

#Dance #Angel #Flames

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Joy #Tragedy #Abiding

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

#Inspirational #Happiness #Health

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Love #Life #Dream

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

#Friendship #Real Friends #Men

The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wise #Angel #Godly

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wisdom #Philosophy #Imagination

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beautiful #Time #Enemy

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

#Beauty #Beautiful #Men

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Disappointment #Long

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.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Children #Men #Wife

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.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beautiful #Dream #Retirement

Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Tombstone #Eye

Myself I must remake.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Remakes

The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Light #Shadow

Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wind #Collaboration #Clock

I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Dream #Imagination #Vision

The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Sex #Soul #Tragedy

Hearts are not had as a gift, But hearts are earned...
-- William Butler Yeats

#Broken Heart #Heart #Broken

Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Custody

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

#Life #Heart #World

How can we know the dancer from the dance?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Inspirational #Life #Dance

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Thinking #Swag #Design

Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Writing #Light #Cast Away

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick
-- William Butler Yeats

#Time #Men #Sticks

Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room As though dried straw, and if we turn about The bare chimney is gone black out Because the work had finished in that flare.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Black #Gone

yet it seems Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind, Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams, But the torn petals strew the garden plot; And there's but common greenness after that.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Morning #Garden

And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wisdom #Butterfly #Optimism

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till the stars are beginning to blink and peep; And the young lie long and dream in their bed....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Dream #Stars #Work

And that enquiring man John Synge comes next, That dying chose the living world for text And never could have rested in the tomb But that, long travelling, he had come Towards nightfall upon certain set apart In a most desolate stony place....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Men #Long

Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wisdom #Art #Fate

Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Women #Heart #Sides

I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Sadness #Heart #Dumb

I have nothing but the embittered sun; Banished heroic mother moon and vanished, And now that I have come to fifty years I must endure the timid sun.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Mother #Reality #Moon

Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God's Providence.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Bird #Wish #Might

When a man grows old his joy Grows more deep day after day, His empty heart is full at length But he has need of all that strength Because of the increasing Night That opens her mystery and fright.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Fear #Heart #Night

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Men #Giving

There is no release In a bodkin or disease, Nor can there be a work so great As that which cleans man's dirty slate.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Art #Dirty

And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beauty #God #Heaven

If Michael, leader of God's host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post He would his deeds forget.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beauty #Doors #Leader

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna's children died.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Beauty #Dream #Children

Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Men #Soul

I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent
-- William Butler Yeats

#Thoughtful #Thinking #Mind

What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live...?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Hope #Art

man's life is thought, And he, despite his terror, cannot cease Ravening through century after century, Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come Into the desolation of reality....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Thoughtful #Reality

Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Night #Garden

Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wisdom #Ignorant #Youth

For wisdom is the property of the dead, A something incompatible with life; and power, Like everything that has the stain of blood, A property of the living; but no stain Can come upon the visage of the moon When it has looked in glory from a cloud.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Wisdom #Moon

Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Wise #Wisdom #Writing

O heart, we are old; The living beauty is for younger men: We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Heart #Men #Tears

Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Lost Love #Fool

Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Laughter #Children

I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Truth #Afterlife #Laughing

I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Truth #Men #Self

Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Truth #Lying #Men

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Children #Men

How can they know Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Truth #Solitude #Care

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Dream #Truth #Heart

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?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Men #What Matters

For what but eye and ear silence the mind With the minute particulars of mankind?
-- William Butler Yeats

#Eye #Silence #Mind

Where the world ends The mind is made unchanging, for it finds Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope, The flagstone under all, the fire of fires, The roots of the world.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Roots #Fire #Miracle

But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Time #Children #Past

I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs, Those undreamt accidents that have made me Seeing that Fame has perished this long while, Being but a part of ancient ceremony Notorious, till all my priceless things Are but a post the passing dogs defile.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Forgiveness #Dog #Long

Why should I seek for love or study it? It is of God and passes human wit; I study hatred with great diligence, For that's a passion in my own control, A sort of besom that can clear the soul Of everything that is not mind or sense.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Hate #Passion #Hatred

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns, Amid the rustle of his planted hills, Life overflows without ambitious pains; And rains down life until the basin spills, And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains As though to choose whatever shape it wills....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Life #Pain #Rain

Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Fashion #Song #Loss

The hare grows old as she plays in the sun And gazes around her with eyes of brightness; Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done She limps along in an aged whiteness....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Eye #Play #Age

I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag....
-- William Butler Yeats

#Men #Redemption #Maids

My soul had found All happiness in its own cause or ground. Godhead on Godhead in sexual spasm begot Godhead. Some shadow fell. My soul forgot Those amorous cries that out of quiet come And must the common round of day resume.
-- William Butler Yeats

#Happiness #Sex #Soul