I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I had still the ambition, formed in Sligo in my teens, of living in imitation of Thoreau on Innisfree, a little island… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw, A Buddha, hand at rest,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Should some limb of the devil Destroy the view by cutting down an ash That shades the road, or setting up a… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
All the great masters have understood that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
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… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns, Amid the rustle of his planted hills, Life overflows without ambitious pains; And rains down… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
Let the minor genius go his light way and enjoy his life - the great nature cannot so live, he is never… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
A spot whereon the founders lived and died Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees, Or gardens rich in memory glorified… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
“O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and joy! O race that… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
When I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
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… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine. — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share
