William Butler Yeats Quotes
An Irish poet, dramatist and mystic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
(1865 - 1939)
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A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstinting has been naught.
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A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.
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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 neighbors vote.
[Politics]
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Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.
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All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
[Opinion]
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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.
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An intellectual hatred is the worst.
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And say my glory was I had such friends.
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Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.
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Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
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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.
[Action]
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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
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Cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry.
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Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.
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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.
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Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
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Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water's roar?
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Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
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Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
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