William Butler Yeats — "I have been a student of the occult for many years, and I have found much truth …"

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

"In a battle like Ireland's, which is one of poverty against wealth, we must prove our sincerity by making ourselves unpopular to wealth. We must accept the baptism of the gutter."

"Talk to me of originality and, I will turn on you with rage. I am a crowd, I am a lonely man, I am nothing. Ancient salt is best packing."

"I am a very superstitious man."

"My own position is that an idealism or spiritualism which denies magic, and evil spirits even, and sneers at magicians and even mediums (the few honest ones) is an academical imposture."