The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.

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

When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their...

Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic heart.

Farewell — farewell,For I am weary of the weight of time.

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

I heard the old, old, men say “all that’s beautiful drifts away, like the waters

Because of that great nobleness of hersThe fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,Burns but more clearly.

There’s more enterpriseIn walking naked.

If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I...

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.

I sigh that kiss you,For I must ownThat I shall miss youWhen you have grown.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,And dream about the great and their pride;They have spoken against you everywhere,But weigh this song with the great and their pride;I made it out of a mouthful of...

Irish poets, learn your trade,Sing whatever is well made.

Oh, Love is the crooked thing, there is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it, for he will be thinking about love til the stars run away and the shadows eaten...

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

When we are young we long to tread a way none have trod before

If I make the lashes darkAnd the eyes more brightAnd the lips more scarlet,Or ask if all be rightFrom mirror after mirror,No vanity’s displayed:I’m looking for the face I hadBefore the world was made.

Who mocks at music mocks at love.

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,The soul recovers radical innocenceAnd learns at last that it is self-delighting,Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will.

The ghost of Roger Casement is beating on the door.

The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.

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.

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

I would mould a world of fire and dew.

The problem with some people is that when they aren’t drunk, they’re sober.

O love is the crooked thing,There is nobody wise enoughTo find out all that is in it.

I would be — for no knowledge is worth a straw –Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.

Time’s bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes.

You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace; think where man’s...

An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.

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

Time drops in decay,Like a candle burnt out,And the mountains and woodsHave their day, have their day;

May she be granted beauty and yet notBeauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,Being made beautiful overmuch,Consider beauty a sufficient end,Lose natural kindness and maybeThe heart-revealing intimacyThat chooses right,...

Our words must seem to be inevitable.

Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on.

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.

A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.

One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a man’s eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of...

Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.

Time’s bitter flood will rise,Your beauty perish and be lostFor all eyes but these eyes.

Nothing but sweetness can remain when hearts are full of their own sweetness.

Cast a cold eyeOn life, on deathHorseman, pass by!

Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.

Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

An intellectual hatred is the worst.

I agree about Shaw – he is haunted by the mystery he flouts. He is an atheist who trembles in the haunted corridor.