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The only enemy of innocence and beauty is time.

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
Innocence
Enemy
Beauty
Time

More quotes by 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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True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.
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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And many a poor man that has roved Loved and thought himself beloved From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
William Butler Yeats
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Some burn damp faggots, others may consume The entire combustible world in one small room.
William Butler Yeats
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Everything in nature is resurrection.
William Butler Yeats
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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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I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore, Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no moreSoon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be, Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
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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Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
William Butler Yeats
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I weave the shoes of Sorrow: Soundless shall be the footfall light In all men's ears of Sorrow, Sudden and light.
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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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
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Great literature has always been written in a like spirit, and is, indeed, the Forgiveness of Sin, and when we find it becoming the Accusation of Sin, as in George Eliot, who plucks her Tito in pieces with as much assurance as if he had been clockwork, literature has begun to change into something else.
William Butler Yeats
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One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.
William Butler Yeats
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I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.
William Butler Yeats
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You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age They were not such a plague when I was young What else have I to spur me into song?
William Butler Yeats
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Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
William Butler Yeats
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A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon I hail the superhuman I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
William Butler Yeats
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I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag.
William Butler Yeats