1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.

Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.

When You Are Old" WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Now must we sing and sing the best we can, But first you must be told your character: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power.

It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

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....

In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.