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I always think a great speaker convinces us not by force of reasoning, but because he is visibly enjoying the beliefs he wants us to accept.

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
Wants
Speaker
Belief
Speakers
Enjoy
Enjoying
Force
Reasoning
Great
Convince
Always
Beliefs
Think
Accept
Convinces
Thinking
Accepting
Visibly

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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The light of lights looks always on the motive, not the deed, the shadow of shadows on the deed alone.
William Butler Yeats
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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.
William Butler Yeats
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We cannot doubt that barbaric people receive such influences more visibly and obviously, and in all likelihood more easily and fully than we do, for our life in cities, which deafens or kills the passive meditative life, and our education that enlarges the separated, self-moving mind, have made our souls less sensitive.
William Butler Yeats
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I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough' wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.
William Butler Yeats
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to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief.
William Butler Yeats
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Come let us mock at the good That fancied goodness might be gay, And sick of solitude Might proclaim a holiday: Wind shrieked and where are they?
William Butler Yeats
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There are no strangers here Only friends you haven't yet met.
William Butler Yeats
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O sweet everlasting Voices, be still Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more.
William Butler Yeats
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I call on those that call me son, Grandson, or great-grandson, On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts, To judge what I have done. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent?
William Butler Yeats
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My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head.
William Butler Yeats
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The living can assist the imagination of the dead.
William Butler Yeats
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Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.
William Butler Yeats
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This great purple butterfly, In the prison of my hands, Has a learning in his eye Not a poor fool understands.
William Butler Yeats
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He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.
William Butler Yeats
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It was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.
William Butler Yeats
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I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window.
William Butler Yeats
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Our words must seem to be inevitable.
William Butler Yeats
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Boughs have their fruit and blossom At all times of the year Rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer.
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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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