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Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.

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
Age
Heroic
Individual
Statements
Art
Passed
Truth
Traditional
Certain
Supreme
Never
Tradition
Modified
Genius
Statement
Religious
Abandoned

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
William Butler Yeats
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We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.
William Butler Yeats
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Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.
William Butler Yeats
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I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams.
William Butler Yeats
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I summon to the winding ancient stair Set all your mind upon the steep ascent
William Butler Yeats
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When we have blamed the wind we can blame love.
William Butler Yeats
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The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.
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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Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother's reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
William Butler Yeats
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Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast, Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest.
William Butler Yeats
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Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
William Butler Yeats
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The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song, Should know what issue is at stake: It is myself that I remake.
William Butler Yeats
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Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content.
William Butler Yeats
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The Danaan children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold, And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes, For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies, With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold.
William Butler Yeats
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And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.
William Butler Yeats
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The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves they must take their pleasure raw they haven't the time to cook it.
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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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
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Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats
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I--love's skein upon the ground, My body in the tomb-- Shall leap into the light lost In my mother's womb.
William Butler Yeats