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William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats Quotes

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Famous William Butler Yeats Quotes

“A line will take us hours maybe; / Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, / Our stitching and unstitching has been naught... Better go down upon your marrow-bones / And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones... For to articulate sweet sounds together / Is to work harder than all these, and yet / Be thought an idler by the noisy set.”

IfsDoeHas BeensMomentsSeemsTogetherSoundHoursLinesBreakSweetHard WorkStonesHarderBonesKitchenWork HarderNoisyPavementMarrowIdlers
Book:Later Poems
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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.”

IfsHumansSpeakHuman BeingsBoysViolenceDogPoliticianStonesCatSellsAddCharityContemptOppressedOrganizeOppressorsGood Politicians
Book:A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats
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“If a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world, than from historical records, or from speculation, wherein the heart withers.”

IfsWorldHeartSpiritDesirePowerfulDestinyRecordsThis WorldHistoricalSpeculationBenevolent
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
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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.”

IfsSpiritLiteratureSinPiecesWrittenBecomingAssuranceAccusationPluckClockworkEliotGreat LiteratureForgiveness Of SinsTito
Book:Ideas of Good and Evil
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“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.”

IfsWorldMindSoulSidesMemoriesOpinionRichHabitBuiltEmptyInstinctExtremesInstanceSooner Or LaterProbabilityPropositionsStrainAffrontEmpty Souls
Book:Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats
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“The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me.”

IfsMenTryingWellsBeliefMemoriesHeardPleaseWarmConfusedThreadGarmentsWovenThreads Of Life
Book:When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales
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“Brown Penny I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,' And then, 'I am old enough'; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. 'Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.' Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O love is the crooked thing, There is nobody wise enough To find out all that is in it, For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon. Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, One cannot begin it too soon.”

IfsThinkingMenEnoughMightWould BeRunningYoungStarsLove IsWiseHairMoonShadowFairsAnd LoveYoung ManBrownRunning AwayPenniesCrookedLoopsBe Young
Book:Collected Poems
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“Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O Never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingWellsHeartKindMadeEnoughPlayDreamSeemsCertainLostGivenCostKissingBlindLipsPassionateDelightLovelyDumbFadesSmoothDeafDreamyDeaf And DumbPassionate Woman
Book:The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
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“Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.”

IfsThinkingMenWorldShouldLooksHeartMadeEyeFacesAsksDarkBloodColdMy HeartMirrorsLipsVanityBelovedWhat IfBetrayedLashesScarlet
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“The Mask "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." "O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." "I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." "It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." "But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." "O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?"”

IfsMindHeartMatterEyeBehindsEnemyFireWiseColdBeatsGoldDearBurningEngagedMaskDeceitWhat MattersFinding LoveEmeralds
Book:The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
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“Now as to magic. It is surely absurd to hold me "weak" or otherwise because I choose to persist in a study which I decided deliberately four or five years ago to make, next to my poetry, the most important pursuit of my life...If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

IfsThinkingWritingYearsMadeImportantBookLife IsNextStudyFiveFourWrittenMagicYears AgoWeakDecidedConstantPursuitAbsurdFive YearsPersistMysticalHold MeBlakeSingle Word
Author:William Butler Yeats
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