William Butler Yeats, born 13 June, 1865 in Sandymount County Dublin was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. Yeats was born into a family that was very well to do.
Yeats helped establish Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. His writings portrayed a number of influences such as romanticism, and mysticism while his later work was influenced by politics.
W.B. Yeats died on 28 January 1939 at the age of 73 after his health declined. He is buried at the Drumcliffe Church in Co. Sligo which were his last wishes as this was where his grandfather once practiced.
We remember and celebrate W.B. Yeats with some of his most famous quotes –
“I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams”
“It is love that I am seeking for, But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind That is not in the world”
“Life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens”
“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends”
“Too long a sacrifice, Can make a stone of the heart”
“In dreams begins responsibility”
“Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone”
“I shall find the dark grow luminous, the void fruitful when I understand I have nothing, that the ringers in the tower have appointed for the hymen of the soul a passing bell”
“Land of Heart’s Desire, Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song”