Quote

All the great masters have understood that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it

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
Always
Art
Wander
Life
Cannot
Limited
World
Littles
Masters
Better
Understood
Imaged
Little
Beyond
Fable
Without
Seen
Fables
Many
Rich
Simpler
Great
Half
Wandering

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
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Love is based on inequality as friendship is on equality.
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The Bishop has a skin, God knows, Wrinkled like the foot of a goose, (All find safety in the tomb.) Nor can he hide in holy black The heron's hunch upon his back, But a birch-tree stood my Jack.
William Butler Yeats
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The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart.
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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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On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
William Butler Yeats
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Sweetheart, do not love too long: I loved long and long, And grew to be out of fashion Like an old song.
William Butler Yeats
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God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.
William Butler Yeats
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BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there.
William Butler Yeats
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We are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Burke we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence.
William Butler Yeats
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Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled. Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring The bell that calls us on the sweet far thing.
William Butler Yeats
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We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.
William Butler Yeats
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I know of the leafy paths that the witches take Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool, And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake.
William Butler Yeats
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There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.
William Butler Yeats
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It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.
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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Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the leveling wind.
William Butler Yeats
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For such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend.
William Butler Yeats
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Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
William Butler Yeats
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Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will.
William Butler Yeats