Quotes from William Butler Yeats

All empty souls tend to extreme opinion.

Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

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.

My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theater business, management of men.

And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey.

Land of Heart's Desire Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

Not a man alive has so much luck that he can play with it.

Maybe the bride-bed brings despair, For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there...

What man does not understand, he fears; and what he fears, he tends to destroy.

One man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

That toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain.

Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.

It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.

I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'

God guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds.

Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?

What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live...?

The women take so little stock In what I do or say They'd sooner leave their cosseting To hear a jackass bray.

We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936

Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?

The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.

Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.

Poet and sculptor, do the work, / Nor let the modish painter shirk