It would need a great deal of wisdom to know what it is we want to know.

Where got I that truth? Out of a medium’s mouth, Out of nothing it came, Out of the forest loam, Out of dark night where lay The crowns of Nineveh

A starlit or a moonlit dome disdainsAll that man is;All mere complexities,The fury and the mire of human veins.

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

The friends that have it I do wrongWhen ever I remake a song,Should know what issue is at stake:It is myself that I remake.

I have no question:It is enough, I know what fixed the stationOf star and cloud.And knowing all, I cry. . . .

We had fed the heart on fantasies,The heart’s grown brutal from the fare.

The folly that man doesOr must suffer, if he woosA proud woman not kindred of his soul.

Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,That long to give themselves for wage,To shake their wicked sides at youthRestraining reckless middle age?

The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take the second must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.

This melancholy London – I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.

That William BlakeWho beat upon the wallTill Truth obeyed his call.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst...

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...

I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words. . . .

Bred to a harder thingThan Triumph, turn awayAnd like a laughing stringWhereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone,Be secret and exult,Because of all things knownThat is most difficult.

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

Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.

Now that my ladder’s goneI must lie down where all ladders startIn the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under...

Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.

All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born

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

One should not lose one’s temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.

Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave

TOIL and grow rich, what’s that but to lie with a foul witch and after, drained dry, to be brought to the chamber where lies one long sought with despair.

What do you think of when alone at night?Do not the things your mothers spoke about,Before they took the candle from the bedside,Rush up into the mind and master it,Till you believe in them against...

It is a hard thing to be married to a man of learning that must always be having arguments.

I bear a burden that might well tryMen that do all by rule,And what can IThat am a wandering-witted foolBut pray to God that He easeMy great responsibilities?

In dreams begin responsibility.

I have believed the best of every man, and find that to believe it is enough to make a bad man show him at his best or even a good man swing his lantern higher.

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned

Speak, speak, for underneath the cover thereThe sand is running from the upper glass,And when the last grain’s through, I shall be lost.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

“Because I am mad about womenI am mad about the hills,”Said that wild old wicked manWho travels where God wills. . . .

I think it better that at times like theseWe poets keep our mouths shut, for in truthWe have no gift to set a statesman right;He’s had enough of meddling who can pleaseA young girl in...

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!

Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.

Who stole your wits awayAnd where are they gone?

My fiftieth year had come and gone,I sat, a solitary man,In a crowded London shop,And open book and empty cupOn the marble table-top.

The land of fairy, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic’s heart.

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

Things said or done long years ago, Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My...