1
Style personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.William Butler Yeats
2
The best lack all conviction while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.William Butler Yeats
3
The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.William Butler Yeats
4
Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.William Butler Yeats
5
No man has ever lived that had enough of children's gratitude or woman's love.William Butler Yeats
6
Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.William Butler Yeats
7
Joy is the will which labours which overcomes obstacles which knows triumph.William Butler Yeats
8
People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.William Butler Yeats
9
The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life or of the work.William Butler Yeats
10
Joy is the will which labors which overcomes obstacles which knows triumph.William Butler Yeats
11
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
12
Only that which does not teach which does not cry out which does not condescend which does not explain is irresistible.William Butler Yeats
13
All empty souls tend to extreme opinion.William Butler Yeats
14
Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry.William Butler Yeats
15
A statesman is an easy man He tells his lies by rote A journalist makes up his lies And takes you by the throat So stay at home and drink your beer And let the neighbours vote.William Butler Yeats
16
Be secret and exult Because of all things known That is most difficult.William Butler Yeats
17
Florence Farr once said to me "If we could say to ourselves with sincerity 'this passing moment is as good as any I shall ever know ' we could die upon the instant and be united with God."William Butler Yeats
18
She bid me take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree But I being young and foolish with her would not agree.William Butler Yeats
19
The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.William Butler Yeats
20
Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.William Butler Yeats
21
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.William Butler Yeats
22
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.William Butler Yeats
23
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
24
In dreams begins responsibility.William Butler Yeats
25
Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.William Butler Yeats
26
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.William Butler Yeats
27
To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.William Butler Yeats
28
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
29
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
30
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 was I had such friends.William Butler Yeats
31
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.William Butler Yeats
32
You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.William Butler Yeats
33
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.William Butler Yeats
34
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
35
The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.William Butler Yeats
36
Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.William Butler Yeats
37
Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.William Butler Yeats
38
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.William Butler Yeats
39
I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'William Butler Yeats
40
I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.William Butler Yeats
41
There are no strangers here Only friends you haven't yet met.William Butler Yeats
42
Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot but make it hot by striking.William Butler Yeats
43
If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.William Butler Yeats
44
How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.William Butler Yeats
45
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.William Butler Yeats
46
One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.William Butler Yeats
47
The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.William Butler Yeats