William Butler Yeats Quotes

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. -Sonnet 73

It's twilight. It’s the safest time of day for us. The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way...the end of another day, the return of the night. Darkness is so predictable, don’t you think?

The world is a playground, and death is the night.

The short span of life forbids us to spin out hope to any length. Soon will night be upon you, and the fabled Shades, and the shadowy Plutonian home.

Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.

Night has patterns that can be read less by the living than by the dead.

There is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of the old. Nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the strong.

Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell when I embark.

The world, with all its beauty and adventure, its richness and variety, is darkened by cruelty. Death, if it ends the loveliness, the adventure, ends also that. Death balances the picture.

I don't really think I am interested in the macabre, but I am curious about death. That's normal... The only certainty in life is that we're all going to die. It would be unnatural not to think about death once in a while.

The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.

X. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” XI. I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. XII. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.

When I lie where shades of darkness Shall no more assail mine eyes.

Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

The seeds of Death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up till, like rampant weeds, they choak the tender flower of life.

There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August. Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time…until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever. I mean, forever.

Night falls fast. Today is in the past.

Black is the color of night. White is the true color of death

The best advice about getting older? Just be thankful you're not dead!