1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content.

All art is, indeed, a monotony in external things for the sake of an interior variety, a sacrifice of gross effects to subtle effects, an asceticism of the imagination.

Where the world ends The mind is made unchanging, for it finds Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope, The flagstone under all, the fire of fires, The roots of the world.

I bear a burden that might well try Men that do all by rule, And what can I That am a wandering-witted fool But pray to God that He ease My great responsibilities?

I have just read a long novel by Henry James. Much of it made me think of the priest condemned for a long space to confess nuns.

All through the years of our youth Neither could have known Their own thought from the other’s, We were so much at one.

This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands.

Nobody running at full speed has either a head or a body.

We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics or but half create.