1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote. A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat. So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote.

Come, fix upon me that accusing eye. I thirst for accusation. All that was sung. All that was said in Ireland is a lie Breed out of the contagion of the throng, Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.

I knew that I had seen, had seen at last That girl my unremembering nights hold fast Or else my dreams that fly If I should rub an eye, And yet in flying fling into my meat A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat...

While Michael Angelo’s Sistine roof, His “Morning” and his “Night” disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew.

Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes...

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.

I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic’s heart.

And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey...