1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

Once he said to me in the height of his imperial propaganda, ‘Tell those young men in Ireland that this great thing must go on. They say Ireland is not fit for self-government but that is nonsense. It is as fit as any other European country but we cannot grant it.

Earth in beauty dressed Awaits returning spring. All true love must die, Alter at the best Into some lesser thing. Prove that I lie.

If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made.

An age is the reversal of an age: When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone, We lived like men that watch a painted stage. What matter for the scene, the scene once gone: It had not touched our lives.

A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God’s Providence.

I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men’s ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will...

Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.