“Only God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.”

— William Butler Yeats, The Winding Stair and Other Poems, 1933; "For Anne Gregory"

About William Butler Yeats

1865 – 1939

Irish poet and Nobel laureate in Literature (1923).

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

“In dreams begin responsibilities.”

“Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?”

“All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.”

“The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything.”

“I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one.”

“Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.”

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”