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Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.

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
Ideas
Intended
Even
Accident
Something
Breakfast
Never
Accidents
Incoherence
Complete
Bundle
Poet
Bundles
Idea
Reborn
Seems
Sits

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
William Butler Yeats
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One should say before sleeping: I have lived many lives. I have been a slave and a prince. Many a beloved has sat upon my knee and I have sat upon the knees of many a beloved. Everything that has been shall be again.
William Butler Yeats
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I have mummy truths to tell Whereat the living mock, Though not for sober ear, For maybe all that hear Should laugh and weep an hour upon the clock.
William Butler Yeats
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Much did I rage when young, Being by the world oppressed, But now with flattering tongue It speeds the parting guest.
William Butler Yeats
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When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side, The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream.
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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Though pedantry denies, It's plain the Bible means That Solomon grew wise While talking with his queens.
William Butler Yeats
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For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.
William Butler Yeats
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I know that I shall meet my fate somewhere among the clouds above those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.
William Butler Yeats
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In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion into confusion or dullness.
William Butler Yeats
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Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.
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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May we two stand, When we are dead, beyond the setting suns, A little from other shades apart, With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.
William Butler Yeats
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The Father and His angelic hierarchy That made the magnitude and glory there Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
William Butler Yeats
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A speckled cat and a tame hare Eat at my hearthstone And sleep there And both look up to me alone For learning and defence As I look up to Providence.
William Butler Yeats
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In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class.
William Butler Yeats
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Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns? I have been changed to a hound with one red ear I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns.
William Butler Yeats
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Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams
William Butler Yeats
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Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.
William Butler Yeats
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A thought Of that late death took all my heart for speech.
William Butler Yeats