Quotes by William Butler Yeats

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

“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.”

“To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 wher...”

“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.”

“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.”

“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.”

“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. ”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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 d...”

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

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

“There are no strangers here Only friends you haven't yet met.”

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

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