William Butler Yeats

“Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.”

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

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”

“A Deep Sworn VowOthers because you did not keepThat deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;Yet always when I look death in the face,When I clamber to the heights of sleep,Or when I grow excited with wine,Suddenly I meet your face.”

“I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.”

“I am still of [the] opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood--sex and the dead.”

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

“I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head.”

“The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”

“Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room,Maimed us at the start.I carry from my mother's wombA fanatic heart.”

“Why should I blame her that she filled my daysWith misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire?What could have made her peaceful with a mindThat nobleness made simple as a fire,With beauty like a tightened bow, a kindThat is not natural in an age like thisBeing high and solitary and most stern?Why, what could she have done, being what she is?Was there another Troy for her to burn?”

“Love comes in at the eye.”

“Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.”

“The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me.”

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

“I bring you with reverent handsThe books of my numberless dreams.”

“Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.”

“Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.”

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”

“Though I am old with wanderingThrough hollow lands and hilly lands,I will find out where she has gone,And kiss her lips and take her hands;And walk among long dappled grass,And pluck till time and times are doneThe silver apples of the moon,The golden apples of the sun.- The Song of Wandering Aengus”

“ROSE of all Roses, Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care; While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand. Turn if you may from battles never done, I call, as they go by me one by one, Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace, For him who hears love sing and never cease, Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade: But gather all for whom no love hath made A woven silence, or but came to cast A song into the air, and singing past To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you Who have sought more than is in rain or dew Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth, Or sighs amid the wandering starry mirth, Or comes in laughter from the sea’s sad lips; And wage God’s battles in the long grey ships. The sad, the lonely, the insatiable, To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell; God’s bell has claimed them by the little cry Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die. Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing. Beauty grown sad with its eternity Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea. Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait, For God has bid them share an equal fate; And when at last defeated in His wars, They have gone down under the same white stars, We shall no longer hear the little cry Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.The Sweet Far Thing”

“The Light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deedThe Shadow of Shadows looks on the deed alone.”

“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf 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.”

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

“The blessed spirits must be sought within the self which is common to all ”

“What do we know but that we face one another in this place?”

“...nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness.”

“To long a sacrifice can make a stone of a heart”

“The Lake Isle of InnisfreeI will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

“That beautiful mild woman for whose sakeThere's many a one shall find out all heartacheOn finding that her voice is sweet and lowReplied, 'To be born a woman is to know-Although they do not talk of it at school -That we must labor to be beautiful.”