The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the … - William Butler Yeats

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The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

William Butler Yeats

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life intellect hardship

English

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About William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish symbolist poet, dramatist and mystic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He compiled the Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: W. B. Yeats • William Yeats • W.B. Yeats • WBY

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The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work.

Originators like William Butler Yeats:

Lord Byron Alfred Tennyson John Keats Samuel Taylor Coleridge Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Additional quotes by William Butler Yeats

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

(Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven)

All the wild-witches, those most notable ladies
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.

Englishmen are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labour of its unfamiliar thought.

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in t… - William Butler Yeats

About William Butler Yeats

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