No man has ever lived that had enough
Of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.

The couplet expresses a bleak, generalized insight about human desire and emotional insufficiency: however much gratitude one receives from one’s children, or love from a woman, it never feels “enough.” Yeats frames this as a universal condition (“No man has ever lived”), suggesting that longing outstrips fulfillment and that the most intimate forms of affection are still unable to satisfy a deeper hunger for recognition, security, or meaning. The pairing of “children’s gratitude” with “woman’s love” also points to two archetypal sources of validation—family legacy and romantic devotion—implying that even these cannot fully quiet the self’s appetite.