Quotes by William Butler Yeats

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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.

William Butler Yeats

Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory w...

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

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

William Butler Yeats

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.

William Butler Yeats

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

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 at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.

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 only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.

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.

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats

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

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

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

William Butler Yeats