William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honoured for what the Nobel Committee described as “inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.” Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower and The Winding Stair and Other Poems. Yeats was a very good friend of American expatriate poet and Bollingen Prize laureate Ezra Pound. Yeats wrote the introduction for Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, which was published by the India Society.
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How can we know the dancer from the dance?
—William Butler Yeats
People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.
—William Butler Yeats
From our birthday, until we die, is but the winking of an eye.
—William Butler Yeats
The Light of Lights Looks always on the motive,
not the deed, The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.
—William Butler Yeats
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