W. B. Yeats

I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one’s self.

W. B. Yeats

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

W. B. Yeats

I will make rigid my roots and branches. It is not now my turn to burst into leaves and flowers.

W. B. Yeats

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.

W. B. Yeats

I would that I were an old beggar rolling a blind pearl eye, for he cannot see my lady go gallivanting by.

W. B. Yeats

If one writes one can do nothing else.

W. B. Yeats

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

W. B. Yeats

It is love that I am seeking for, but of a beautiful, unheard-of kind that is not in the world.

W. B. Yeats

It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class. I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says there is no wisdom without leisure.

W. B. Yeats

It is not permitted to a man, who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another.

W. B. Yeats