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Man can embody truth but he cannot know 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
Men
Embody
Cannot
Truth

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
William Butler Yeats
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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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Come near I would, before my time to go, Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways: Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.
William Butler Yeats
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I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Invar Amargin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away.
William Butler Yeats
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Style, personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only escape from the hot-faced bargainers and money-changers.
William Butler Yeats
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One man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
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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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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. . . you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death
William Butler Yeats
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I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.
William Butler Yeats
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How can the arts overcome the slow dying of men's hearts that we call progress ?
William Butler Yeats
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In luck or out the toil has left its mark: That old perplexity an empty purse, Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.
William Butler Yeats
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If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.
William Butler Yeats
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Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?
William Butler Yeats
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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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Many times man lives and dies Betweeen his two eternities, That of race and that of soul, And ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man die in his bed Or the rifle knocks him dead
William Butler Yeats
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My wretched dragon is perplexed.
William Butler Yeats
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When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.
William Butler Yeats
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Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.
William Butler Yeats
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I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch.
William Butler Yeats