1,059 Quotes by William Butler Yeats

To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.

I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag....

Where there is nothing, there is God.

Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.

What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There's better exercise In the sunlight and wind.

It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is

I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.

Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.

A shudder in the loins engenders thereThe broken wall, the burning roof and towerAnd Agamemnon dead.