William Butler Yeats

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

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

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 glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

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

What shall I do for pretty girls Now my old bawd is dead?

The true poet is all the time a visionary and whether with friends or not, as much alone as a man on his death bed.

Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love's pleasure drives his love away, The painter's brush consumes his dreams.

Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveler; he Served human liberty.

Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike.

I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer

While they danced they came over them the weariness with the world, the melancholy, the pity one for the other, which is the exultation of love.

What shall I do with this absurdity- O heart, O troubled heart-this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye That more expected the impossible.

The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart.

Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.

Through winter-time we call on spring,_x000D_ _x000D_ And through the spring on summer call,_x000D_ _x000D_ And when the abounding hedges ring_x000D_ _x000D_ Declare that winter's best of all:_x000D_ _x000D_ And after that there's nothing good_x000D_ _x000D_ Because the spring time has not come-_x000D_ _x000D_ Not know that what disturbs our blood_x000D_ _x000D_ Is but its longing for the tomb.

Consume my heart away, sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is, and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.

Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

When such as I cast out remorse; So great a sweetness flows into the breast; We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.

Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams