William Butler Yeats Quotes
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It seems to me that love, if it is fine, is essentially a discipline.
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"Chaunt in his ear delusions magical, That he may fight the horses of the sea." The Druids took them to their mystery, And chaunted for three days.
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My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theater business, management of men.
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Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world, and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary. You may argue against it but you should no more treat it with disrespect than a perfectly cultivated writer would treat (say) the Catholic Church or the Church of Luther no matter how much he disliked them.
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What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?
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Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.
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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
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Life moves out of a red flare of dreams Into a common light of common hours, Until old age brings the red flare again.
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The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven't the time to cook it.
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Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land; Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand.
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Many times man lives and dies between his two eternities: that of race and that of Soul... A brief parting from those dear is the worst man has to fear... Though grave diggers' toil is long... They but thrust their buried men back in the human mind again.
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It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.
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The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.
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I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.
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This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
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When a man grows old his joy Grows more deep day after day, His empty heart is full at length But he has need of all that strength Because of the increasing Night That opens her mystery and fright.
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I long for truth, and yet I cannot stay from that My better self disowns, For a man's attention Brings such satisfaction To the craving in my bones.
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Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
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God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.
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I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
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Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
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There is no deformity But saves us from a dream.
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Test every work of intellect or faith and everything that your own hands have wrought.
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There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.