The 30 Best W. B. Yeats Quotes You Need to Know
William Butler Yeats (born June 13, 1865, Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland—died January 28, 1939, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France), known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer, one of the most prominent figures of 20th-century literature.
Key Takeaways
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- Major Works: The Land of Heart’s Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), The Second Coming (1919), The Tower (1928) and Last Poems and Plays (1940).
- Nobel Prize Winner: In 1923, Yeats became the first Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”
- Founding the Abbey Theatre: Yeats was one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre in 1904. This institution became a cornerstone of the Irish Literary Revival, promoting Irish culture and identity.
- Years as Senator: Served two terms in the Irish Free State Senate (1922-1928).
W. B. Yeats’s contributions to literature, culture, and politics have left an indelible mark on the world. His work continues to resonate, offering insights into the human condition and the spirit of a nation.
Below are some of Yeats’s most striking quotes—full of beauty, mystery, and hard-won truth, offering a glimpse into the mind of a poet who never stopped asking the big, timeless questions.
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz (1933); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 229
Life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 106
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.Letter ot Elizabeth Pelham (January 4, 1939); in The Letters of W. B. Yeats (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), Page 922
Though leaves are many, the root is one.The Coming of Wisdom with Time (1910); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 92
Not a man alive has so much luck that he can play with it.At the Hawk's Well (1916), The Collected Plays of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1960), Page 215
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.Per Amica Silentia Lunae (ed. Macmillain, 1918), Page 21
For death who takes what man would keep, leaves what man would lose.John Kinsella's Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore (1936-39); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 329
The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.Letter to Frederick Gregg (early 1887); in The Letters of W. B. Yeats (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), Page 31
Nothing that we love over-much is ponderable to our touch.Towards Break of Day (1921); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 183
Starving men may take what’s necessary, and yet be sinless.The Countess Cathleen (ed. T. Fisher Unwin, 1920), Page 44
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. Poets are the policemen of language; they are always arresting those old reprobates the words.Letter to Ellen O'Leary (February 3, 1889); in The Letters of W. B. Yeats (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), Page 109-110
All that’s beautiful drifts away, like the waters.The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water (1904); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 80
No art can conquer the people alone – the people are conquered by an ideal of life upheld by authority.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 491
A king is but a foolish labourer who wastes his blood to be another’s dream.Fergus and the Druid (1893); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 32
We are happy when for everything inside us there is an equivalent something outside us.Letter to Olivia Shakespear (May 27, 1933); in The Letters of W. B. Yeats (ed. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), Page 810
The pain others give passes away in their later kindness, but that of our own blunders, especially when they hurt our vanity, never passes away.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 503
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Those men that in their writings are most wise own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts.Essays (ed. Macmillain, 1924), Page 484
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned by those that are not entirely beautiful.A Prayer for My Daughter (1921); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 186
The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.Letters On Poetry (ed. Oxford University Press, 1939), Page 192
Our own acts are isolated and one act does not buy absolution for another.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 503
He who made you bitter made you wise.Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea (1893); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 34
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.A Vision (ed. Macmillain, 1937), Page 275
So long as all is ordered for attack, and that alone, leaders will instinctively increase the number of enemies that they may give their followers something to do.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 499
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.A Drinking Song (1910); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 92
Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.John Sherman and Dhoya (ed. T. Fisher Unwin, 1891), Page 32
All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability.Autobiographies (ed. Macmillain, 1961), Page 469
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.The Second Coming (1921); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 185
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.Where There Is Nothing (ed. Macmillain, 1903), Page 106
Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.Essays (ed. Macmillain, 1924), Page 423
Seek out reality, leave things that seem.Vacillation (1933); in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (ed. Macmillain, 1951), Page 247
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