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Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
William Butler Yeats -
I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.
William Butler Yeats
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The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.
William Butler Yeats -
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye. I thirst for accusation. All that was sung. All that was said in Ireland is a lie Breed out of the contagion of the throng, Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
William Butler Yeats -
The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.
William Butler Yeats -
May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
William Butler Yeats -
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
William Butler Yeats -
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard A voice singing on a May Eve like this, And followed half awake and half asleep, Until she came into the Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. And she is still there, busied with a dance Deep in the dewy shadow of a wood, Or where stars walk upon a mountain-top.
William Butler Yeats
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for never yet Has lover lived, but longed to wive Like them that are no more alive.
William Butler Yeats -
How could passion run so deep Had I never thought That the crime of being born Blackens all our lot?
William Butler Yeats -
A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more?
William Butler Yeats -
Let the new faces play what tricks they will In the old rooms; night can outbalance day, Our shadows rove the garden gravel still, The living seem more shadowy than they.
William Butler Yeats -
His element is so fine Being sharpened by his death, To drink from the wine-breath While our gross palates drink from the whole wine.
William Butler Yeats -
The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.
William Butler Yeats
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Test every work of intellect or faith, And everything that your own hands have wrought And call those works extravagance of breath That are not suited for such men as come Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
William Butler Yeats -
Earth in beauty dressed Awaits returning spring. All true love must die, Alter at the best Into some lesser thing. Prove that I lie.
William Butler Yeats -
All the stream that's roaring by Came out of a needle's eye.
William Butler Yeats -
Being young you have not known The fool's triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind.
William Butler Yeats -
A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.
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
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Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.
William Butler Yeats -
While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof, His "Morning" and his "Night" disclose How sinew that has been pulled tight, Or it may be loosened in repose, Can rule by supernatural right Yet be but sinew.
William Butler Yeats -
But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
William Butler Yeats -
Come swish around my pretty punk And keep me dancing still That I may stay a sober man Although I drink my fill.
William Butler Yeats