William Butler Yeats Quotes

A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote. A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat. So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Easy Home Invention Journalist Lying Man Stay Vote
Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Contrary Greatness Mystery Past Power Pretend World
It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Emotion Enemy Greatness Ourselves Trouble
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Day Leaves Lying Myself Root Truth Youth
One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

King Life Live Slave Sleep Soul Spiritual
Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Earth Existence Feet Ourselves True
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Best Intense Passionate Worst
All men live in suffering I know as few can know, Whether they take the upper road Or stay content on the low.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Live Low Man Satisfaction Stay Suffering
Everything in nature is resurrection.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Nature One Liner World
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Communication Language People Thinking Wisdom
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Beautiful Enemy Innocence Time
In dreams begin responsibilitiy.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Beginning Dreams Responsibility
Where there is nothing, there is God.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Belief God One Liner
Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Action Advice Hard Work Patience Wait
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Eyes Fall Hairs Heart Lonely Love Rest
I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Body Care Dreams Imagination Light Myself Observation Reason Silence Truth Vision
An intellectual hate is the worst.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Hate Intellectual One Liner Worst
The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world no longer a dream.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Dreams Reality Visible World
Myself I must remake.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Build Improvement Myself Transformation
Everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Brief Delight Dreams Kind Love
Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Battle Character Dreams Fight Fools Inspirational Life Lose Myself Need Night Party Soul Win
Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Joy Labor Obstacle Success
Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Company Friendship Rest Yourself
What man does not understand, he fears; and what he fears, he tends to destroy.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Destroy Fear Himself Man Understand
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

Heart Rose Time
It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Battle Courage Darkness Fight Society Soldier Soul
I believe that our memories are part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Believe Memories Myself Nature

Famous Irish poets