William Butler Yeats

“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.”

“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?”

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

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

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

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

“The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“And say my glory was I had such friends.”

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

“You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.”

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

“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.”

“To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful.”

“Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.”

“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.”

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