"I think you can leave the arts,..." - Quote by 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.”

“Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.”

“The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,Our arms are waving, our lips are apart.”

“When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my pictures of Guernica, they'd ask 'Did you do this?'. And I'd say, 'No, you did.'”

“There is a metaphysical honour in ending the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance.... War cannot be negated. One must live it or die of it. So it is with the absurd: it is a question of breathing with it, of recognizing its lessons and recovering their flesh. In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. "Art and nothing but art", said Nietzsche, "we have art in order not to die of the truth."”

“We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them, they leave them alone.”

“Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.”

“No one will dare maintain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it.”

“The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.”