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Before me floats an image, man or shade, / Shade more than man, more image than a shade.

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
Floats
Shade
Image
Men

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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A drunkard is a dead man And all dead men are drunk.
William Butler Yeats
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That toil of growing up The ignominy of boyhood the distress Of boyhood changing into man The unfinished man and his pain.
William Butler Yeats
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer Things fall apart the centre cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
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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Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch, If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which.
William Butler Yeats
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Yet they that know all things but know That all this life can give us is A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.
William Butler Yeats
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I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve with age.
William Butler Yeats
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When I play on my fiddle in Dooney Folk dance like a wave on the sea.
William Butler Yeats
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There is no release In a bodkin or disease, Nor can there be a work so great As that which cleans man's dirty slate.
William Butler Yeats
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My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd. This Land of Saints, and then as the applause died out, Of plaster Saints his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
William Butler Yeats
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The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain, The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord, Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred, Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored Great nations blossom above, A slave bows down to a slave.
William Butler Yeats
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An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?
William Butler Yeats
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By logic and reason we die hourly by imagination we live.
William Butler Yeats
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We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.
William Butler Yeats
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There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind, The riders upon the galloping horses, The crowd that closes in behind.
William Butler Yeats
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Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. Poet and sculptor, do the work, Nor let the modish painter shirk
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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Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats
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A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.
William Butler Yeats
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For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.
William Butler Yeats