William Butler Yeats Quotes

Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.

I was a shadow among shadows brooding over the fate of other shadows that I alone strove to summon up out of the all-pervading dusk.

Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

A man who finishes a book is always alone when he finishes it.

Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.

By myself walking, To myself talking.

Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder.

At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers, so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone... I became a loner in my own mind... I decided I'd rather be alone.

Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me...my lonely is mine.

Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.

Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.

Solitude is rich but seldom hilarious.

Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

When he grew old, Aristotle, who is not generally considered a tightrope dancer, liked to lose himself in the most labyrinthine and subtle of discourses […]. ‘The more solitary and isolated I become, the more I come to like stories,’ he said.

He who understands humanity seeks solitude

When I’m alone in my room sometimes I stare at the wall, and in the back of my mind I hear my conscience call.

I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude.

More and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.

To be alone is the fate of all great minds—a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils.

Every man is grave alone.

Hoyt was by himself right under one of the portable lights rigged up for the occasion. He had his hands thrust in his pockets, and he looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. There was something strange about the sight, and after a second I figured out why. It was one of the few times I’d ever seen Hoyt alone.

I made up my mind to keep my feelings to myself since they did not seem to matter to anyone else but me.

I want to know what you're thinking, you want to know what I'm thinking. But we're alone. In our own minds. We're trapped in this sort of isolation.