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

How can we know the dancer from the dance?
William Butler Yeats

How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
William Butler Yeats

I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.
William Butler Yeats

I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood - sex and the dead.
William Butler Yeats

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.
William Butler Yeats

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

I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.
William Butler Yeats

I heard the old, old, men say 'all that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters.'
William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above; those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.
William Butler Yeats

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

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

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
William Butler Yeats

In dreams begins responsibility.
William Butler 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.
William Butler Yeats

Joy is of the will which labours, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
William Butler Yeats

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
William Butler Yeats

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
William Butler Yeats

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.
William Butler Yeats