1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good.

One had a lovely face, and two or three had charm, but charm and face were in vain. Because the mountain grass cannot keep the form where the mountain hare has lain.

BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there;

And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.

A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?

And therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo the holy city of Byzantium.

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.