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Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

— William Butler Yeats The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

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Love

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say?

The Tower (1928)

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

The Tower (1928)

The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.

Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)

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

Crossways (1889)

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Butler Yeats (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.