William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeatswas an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1865
CitySandymount, Ireland
CountryIreland
There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind....
The world being illusive, one must be deluded in some way if one is to triumph in it.
Education is not about filling a pail, it's about lighting a fire.
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd. "This Land of Saints," and then as the applause died out, "Of plaster Saints;" his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
I believe... that our memories are part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.
For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.
The only enemy of innocence and beauty is time.
The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain, The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord, Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred, Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored; Great nations blossom above, A slave bows down to a slave.
All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay.
Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend.
Time can but make her beauty over again.
What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?