William Butler Yeats

Poet

1865-06-13

Books by William Butler Yeats

Poems
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Gitanjali (song offerings)

a collection of prose translations made by the author from the original Bengali
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The hour-glass
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Quotes by William Butler Yeats

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.
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When you are old and gray 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.
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I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.
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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
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People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
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You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.
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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.
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This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
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I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.
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A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.
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One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.
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I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.
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All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
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You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.
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Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.
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Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.
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Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
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