William Butler Yeats Quotes
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Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
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The Muse is mute when public men Applaud a modern throne.
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Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man die in his bed Or the rifle knocks him dead
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Our words must seem to be inevitable.
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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 rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow; And then I must scrub and bake and sweep Till the stars are beginning to blink and peep; And the young lie long and dream in their bed.
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How can they know Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone, And there alone, that have no solitude? So the crowd come they care not what may come. They have loud music, hope every day renewed And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.
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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.
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Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
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Come near; I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
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Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.
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How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
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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.
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John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought All that we did, all that we said or sang Must come from contact with the soil, from that Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
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Accursed who brings to light of day the writings I have cast away.
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It's certain there are trout somewhere - And maybe I shall take a trout - but I do not seem to care.
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In dreams begins responsibility.
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We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity.
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Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say. Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.
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Labor is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance How can we know the dancer from the dance?
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All art is in the last analysis an endeavor to condense as out of the flying vapor of the world an image of human perfection, and for its own and not for the art's sake.
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All think what other people think; All know the man their neighbor knows. Lord, what would they say Did their Catullus walk that way?
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The only enemy of innocence and beauty is time.