William Butler Yeats

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

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

“Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.”

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

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

“I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.”

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

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

“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.”

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

“In dreams begins responsibility.”

“Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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