Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say. Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away. — 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
