“An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing.”

— William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium", The Tower (1928)

About William Butler Yeats

1865 – 1939

Irish poet and Nobel laureate in Literature (1923).

“In dreams begin responsibilities.”

“Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?”

“Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”

“Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.”

“When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”

“Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and having people in them, acting.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather.”