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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.

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
Turn
Breaths
Turns
Gay
Eye
Quickly
Away
Ancient
Best
Writers
Never
Looked
Goodnight
Life
Lived
Drawn
Second
Breath

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live...?
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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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Locke sank into a swoon The Garden died God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.
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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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Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God's Providence.
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
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Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
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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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My temptation is quiet. Here at life's end Neither loose imagination Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bone, Can make the truth known.
William Butler Yeats
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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.
William Butler Yeats
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Only the dead can be forgiven But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
William Butler Yeats
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My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
William Butler Yeats
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I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic's heart.
William Butler Yeats
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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
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Death and life were not Till man made up the whole, Made lock, stock and barrel Out of his bitter soul
William Butler Yeats
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All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
William Butler Yeats
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All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right.
William Butler Yeats
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For the good are always the merry, / Save by an evil chance,/ And the merry love the fiddle,/ And the merry love to dance: / And when the folk there spy me,/ They will all come up to me, / With,”Here is the fiddler of Dooney!” / And dance like a wave of the sea.
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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O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
William Butler Yeats