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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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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
Art
Fate
Sculptor
Even
Poet
Sculptors
Work
Choose
Mate
Men
Violence
Tense
Sort
Wisest
Grows
Mates
Wisdom
Painter
Artist
Accomplish
Shirk

More quotes by William Butler Yeats

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Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
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My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of love or politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
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A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half all green Abounding foliage moistened with the dew And half is half and yet is all the scene And half and half consume what they renew.
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Now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats
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Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power.
William Butler Yeats
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I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.
William Butler Yeats
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The labor of the alchemists, who were called artist in their day, is a befitting comparison for a deliberate change of style.
William Butler Yeats
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O heart, we are old The living beauty is for younger men: We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.
William Butler Yeats
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Though I have many words, What woman's satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? O who could have foretold That the heart grows old?
William Butler Yeats
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All the stream that's roaring by Came out of a needle's eye.
William Butler Yeats
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Is it not certain that the Creator yawns in earthquake and thunder and other popular displays, but toils in rounding the delicate spiral of a shell? -Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil
William Butler Yeats
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Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams there is no truth Saving in thine own heart.
William Butler Yeats
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For how can you compete Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?
William Butler Yeats
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We are fastened to a dying animal.
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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The unpurged images of day recede The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song After great cathedral gong.
William Butler Yeats
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When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they'll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things.
William Butler Yeats
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It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat.
William Butler Yeats
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You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon Ireland's history in their lineaments trace 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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Time can but make her beauty over again.
William Butler Yeats