Top 500 William Butler Yeats Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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.”

— William Butler Yeats

102. “A terrible beauty is born.”

— William Butler Yeats

103. “Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.”

— William Butler Yeats

104. “Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.”

— William Butler Yeats

105. “Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men. Is anything better, anything better? Tell us it then...”

— William Butler Yeats

106. “Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate, I find under the boughs of love and hate, In all poor foolish things that live a day, Eternal beauty wandering on her way.”

— William Butler Yeats

107. “If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made.”

— William Butler Yeats

108. “A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.”

— William Butler Yeats

109. “I would that I were an old beggar Rolling a blind pearl eye, For he cannot see my lady Go gallivanting by.”

— William Butler Yeats

110. “The Muse is mute when public men Applaud a modern throne.”

— William Butler Yeats

111. “The blessed spirits must be sought within the self which is common to all.”

— William Butler Yeats

112. “If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them. But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-half of their fascination. Love with them never grows weary, nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet.”

— William Butler Yeats

113. “And God would bid His warfare cease, Saying all things were well; And softly make a rosy peace, A peace of Heaven with Hell.”

— William Butler Yeats

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

— William Butler Yeats

115. “When such as I cast out remorse; So great a sweetness flows into the breast; We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.”

— William Butler Yeats

116. “For wisdom is the property of the dead, A something incompatible with life; and power, Like everything that has the stain of blood, A property of the living; but no stain Can come upon the visage of the moon When it has looked in glory from a cloud.”

— William Butler Yeats

117. “Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.”

— William Butler Yeats

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118. “It’s certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.”

— William Butler Yeats

119. “Earth in beauty dressed Awaits returning spring. All true love must die, Alter at the best Into some lesser thing. Prove that I lie.”

— William Butler Yeats

120. “Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.”

— William Butler Yeats

121. “Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart.”

— William Butler Yeats

122. “Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic heart.”

— William Butler Yeats

123. “All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay.”

— William Butler Yeats

124. “Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man die in his bed Or the rifle knocks him dead.”

— William Butler Yeats

125. “I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them After the red-rose-bordered hem.”

— William Butler Yeats

126. “I kiss you and kiss you, With arms around my own, Ah, how shall I miss you, When, dear, you have grown.”

— William Butler Yeats

127. “Cuchulain stirred, Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard The cars of battle and his own name cried; And fought with the invulnerable tide.”

— William Butler Yeats

128. “I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

— William Butler Yeats

129. “Consume my heart away, sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is, and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.”

— William Butler Yeats

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

— William Butler Yeats

131. “Grant me an old man’s frenzy, Myself must I remake Till I am Timon and Lear Or that William Blake Who beat upon the wall Till Truth obeyed his call.”

— William Butler Yeats

132. “A drunkard is a dead man And all dead men are drunk.”

— William Butler Yeats

133. “Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand...”

— William Butler Yeats

134. “For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular, and full of influence; And should they paint or write still is it action, The struggle of the fly in marmalade.”

— William Butler Yeats

135. “For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”

— William Butler Yeats

136. “Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.”

— William Butler Yeats

137. “If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.”

— William Butler Yeats

138. “You will forget me soon. Oh dear one, hate me rather than forget.”

— William Butler Yeats

139. “What if the Church and the State Are the mob that howls at the door! Wine shall run thick to the end, Bread taste sour.”

— William Butler Yeats

140. “When a man grows old his joy Grows more deep day after day, His empty heart is full at length But he has need of all that strength Because of the increasing Night That opens her mystery and fright.”

— William Butler Yeats

141. “I thought no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?”

— William Butler Yeats

142. “Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make.”

— William Butler Yeats

143. “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.”

— William Butler Yeats

144. “But Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.”

— William Butler Yeats

145. “I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.”

— William Butler Yeats

146. “Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?”

— William Butler Yeats

147. “Love comes in at the eye.”

— William Butler Yeats

148. “Being young you have not known The fool’s triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.”

— William Butler Yeats

149. “Why should I seek for love or study it? It is of God and passes human wit; I study hatred with great diligence, For that’s a passion in my own control, A sort of besom that can clear the soul Of everything that is not mind or sense.”

— William Butler Yeats

150. “The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind’s eye than any face But that of Christ.”

— William Butler Yeats