1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

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.

Land of Heart’s Desire Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass The demons, with their subtle guile, Lift up before us when they pass, Or only gaze a little while...

Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another’s truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.

Because of something told under the famished horn Of the hunter’s moon, that hung between the night and the day, To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay, Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

But bear in mind your lover’s wage Is what your looking-glass can show, And that he will turn green with rage At all that is not pictured there.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.