140 W. B. Yeats Quotes For Budding Young Poets

William Butler Yeats is a legendary Irish writer and poet whose words have become popular as inspirational quotes.

The Irish poet Yeats’ friend and love quotes, poems and inspirational quotes have inspired numerous young writers. He passed away in 1939 after publishing awe-inspiring poems and inspirational quotes.

Irish William Butler Yeats quotes have been accumulated through his written works. The great Irish poet has penned such inspirational quotes that they ended up becoming famed inspirational quotes. Previously, we shared Keats quotes and Alfred Tennyson quotes. Today, we have Irish writer William Butler Yeats quotes for you.

We have in this list William Butler Yeats quotes, WB Yeats quotes, Yeats friends quotes, quotes about WB Yeats, WB Yeats quotes, WB Yeats love poems, perfect for all Yeats fans.
 

Verses and quotes by Yeats have been turned into inspirational quotes by readers. The Irish icon William Butler Yeats poems about love are veru romantic. A love poetry Yeats wrote ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ included - “I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”. These are the best W. B. Yeats love quotes and poems.

   1. “In dreams begins responsibility.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   2. “We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   3. “An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   4. “Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   5. “The innocent and the beautiful

Have no enemy but time.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   6. “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance”

- William Butler Yeats.

   7. “Think where man's glory most begins and ends

And say my glory was I had such friends.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   8. “People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   10. “I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

- William Butler Yeats, ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’.

   11. “The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars!”

- William Butler Yeats.

   12. “Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   13. “The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   14. “What can be explained is not poetry.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   15. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   16. “Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   17. “Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   18. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

- William Butler Yeats.

William Butler Yeats quotes are not only entertaining in fiction but his words also encourage you to dig deeper. These are some wonderful inspirational quotes about W. B. Yeats on friendship and more.

   19. “Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   20. “There is another world, but it is in this one.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   21. “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   22. “For he would be thinking of love - Till the stars had run away and the shadows eaten the moon.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   23. “Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   24. “We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   25. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   26. “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   27. “All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   29. “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.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   30. “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.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   32. “I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   33. “The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

Inspirational quotes by William Butler Yeats have been popular through the decades. W. B. Yeats quotes about Ireland shed a light on his views about his native land. Some inspirational quotes from W. B. Yeats.

   34. “We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.”

   35. “Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”

   36. “Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”

   37. “Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.”

   38. “The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.”

   39. “Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”

   40. “Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird mate in the wild.”

   41. “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.”

   42. “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.”

   43. “Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.”

   44. “Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”

   45. “I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above.”

   46. “One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.”

   47. “The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.”

   48. “Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams, Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.”

W. B. Yeats quotes on friendship and his inspirational quotes have made him a prominent figure in the Irish literary world. The Irish literary icon’s inspirational quote “Think where man's glory most begins and ends. And say my glory was I had such friends.” are amazing. Here are some W. B. Yeats inspirational quotes straight from the Irish literary legend.

   49. “Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   50. “O do not love too long,

Or you will grow out of fashion

Like an old song.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   51. “We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   52. “The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   53. “Though leaves are many, the root is one.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   54. “It is love that I am seeking for,

But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind

That is not in the world.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   55. “Seek out reality, leave things that seem.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   56. “But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,

My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   57. “Be secret and exult. Because of all things known. That is most difficult.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   58. “I am persuaded that our intellects at twenty contain all the truths we shall ever find.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   59. “I spit into the face of Time. That has transfigured me.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   60. “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   61. “She bid me take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree. But I being young and foolish with her would not agree.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   62. “Style personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   64. “A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   65. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

- William Butler Yeats.

   66. “Some people say there is a God; others say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   67. “Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

The inspirational quotes about W. B. Yeats thoughts give us a peek in the Irish poet’s mind. Some of the W. B. Yeats aka William Butler Yeats quotes that will inspire wisdom.

   68. “Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   69. “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.

   70. “But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?”

- William Butler Yeats.

   71. “For the good are always merry.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   72. “Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   73. “Poets are the policemen of language, they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   74. “When we are young, we long to tread a way none trod before.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   75. “The painter's brush consumes his dreams.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   76. “Joy is the will which labors, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   77. “Whatever we build in the imagination will accomplish itself in the circumstances of our lives.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   78. “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 aka W. B. Yeats.

   79. “And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey....”

- William Butler Yeats.

   80. “Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.”

- William Butler Yeats.

William Butler Yeats quotes have helped inspire thousands of young writers and poets. W. B. Yeats is the Irish poet of ‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’. These are the popular W. B. Yeats poetry quotes and inspirational quotes for you.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   82. “Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   83. “I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   84. “I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful English.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   85. “But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?”

- William Butler Yeats.

   86. “Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.”

- William Butler Yeats aka W. B. Yeats.

   87. “Words alone are certain good.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   88. “I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   89. “Like a long-legged fly upon the stream, His mind moves upon silence.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   90. “Many ingenious lovely things are gone. That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, protected from the circle of the moon. That pitches common things about.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   91. “Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.”

- William Butler Yeats.

W. B. Yeats is the Irish author of the famed quote “I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”. Here are some other inspirational quotes about W. B. Yeats on love and the world.

   92. “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   93. “I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   94. “It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   95. “Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   96. “Literature is always personal, always one man's vision of the world, one man's experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   97. “I went out to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   98. “I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   99. “The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   100. “Everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy kind of delight.”  

- William Butler Yeats.

   101. “God guard me from those thoughts men think in the mind alone.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   102. “True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   104. “Nobody running at full speed has either a head or a body.”    

- William Butler Yeats.

   105. “Hammer your thoughts into unity.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   106. “We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   107. “I'm looking for the face I had, before the world was made…”

- William Butler Yeats.

   108. “I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   109. “Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   111. “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild. With a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

- William Butler Yeats.

   112. “When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars. - William Butler Yeats.”

   113. “The things that have been told us in our childhood are not so fragile.”

- William Butler Yeats.

W. B. Yeats love poems are some of the most famous Yeats poems. William Butler Yeats quotes always go beyond the surface. These are the best inspirational quotes and W. B. Yeats poems about love and life.

   114. “No expectation fails there, No pleasing habit ends, No man grows old, No girl grows cold, But friends walk by friends.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   115. “Our words must seem to be inevitable.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   116. “Time's bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost. For all eyes but these eyes.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   117. “Poor men have grown to be rich men, And rich men grown to be poor again, And I am running to Paradise.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   118. “Evil comes to all us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   119. “Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the start.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   120. “Everything that man esteems

Endures a moment or a day.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   121. “Does the imagination dwell the most

Upon a woman won or woman lost?”

- William Butler Yeats.

   122. “Only God, my dear,

Could love you for yourself alone

And not your yellow hair.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   123. “The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   124. “No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   125. “They can hardly separate mere learning from witchcraft, and are fond of words and verses that keep half their secret to themselves.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   126. “It's certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.

   127. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…”

- William Butler Yeats, ‘The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats’.

   128. “The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work.”

- William Butler Yeats, ‘The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats’.

   129. “We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world, And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh."

   130. “The wandering earth herself may be, Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   131. “A king is but a foolish labourer Who wastes his blood to be another's dream.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   132. “Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   133. “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.”

- William Butler Yeats.

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

- William Butler Yeats.

   135. “Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   136. “Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   137. “Myself I must remake.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   138. “How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?”

- William Butler Yeats.

   139. “We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.”

- William Butler Yeats.

   140. “Before us lies eternity; our souls

Are love, and a continual farewell.”

- William Butler Yeats.

Our team at Kidadl has created amazing family-friendly quotes for everyone! If you liked our suggestions for 140 W. B. Yeats quotes for budding young poets, then take a look at Alexander Pope quotes or T.S. Eliot quotes.