Quote

Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.

William Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats
Age: 73 †
Born: 1865
Born: June 13
Died: 1939
Died: January 28
Astrologer
Mystic
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Writer
Scrooby
Nottinghamshire
W. B. Yeats
William Yeats
W.B. Yeats
Winning
Hanged
Party
Reminds
Fighting
Dreamed
Night
Inspire
Character
Losing
Soul
Battle
Needs
Fool
Life
Fight

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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I have nothing more to give you than my heart. Spanish saying Hearts are not to be had as a gift hearts are to be earned.
William Butler Yeats
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You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.
William Butler Yeats
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even The bed of love, that in the imagination Had seemed to be the giver of all peace, Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting, And as soon finished.
William Butler Yeats
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The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. Hound voices were they all.
William Butler Yeats
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Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams I have spread my dreams under your feet Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
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But bear in mind your lover's wage Is what your looking-glass can show, And that he will turn green with rage At all that is not pictured there.
William Butler Yeats
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Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
William Butler Yeats
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I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
William Butler Yeats
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We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.
William Butler Yeats
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All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.
William Butler Yeats
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I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.
William Butler Yeats
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The only enemy of innocence and beauty is time.
William Butler Yeats
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I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.
William Butler Yeats
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But stories that live longest Are sung above the glass, And Parnell loved his country And Parnell loved his lass.
William Butler Yeats
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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.
William Butler Yeats
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Education is not about filling a pail, it's about lighting a fire.
William Butler Yeats
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A lonely impulse of delight
William Butler Yeats
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We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy.
William Butler Yeats
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A line will take us hours maybe / Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, / Our stitching and unstitching has been naught... Better go down upon your marrow-bones / And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones... For to articulate sweet sounds together / Is to work harder than all these, and yet / Be thought an idler by the noisy set.
William Butler Yeats
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Time drops in decay Like a candle burnt out. And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day But, kindly old rout Of the fire-born moods, You pass not away.
William Butler Yeats