Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say; Never to … - William Butler Yeats

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Never to have lived is best, ancient
writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life,
never to have looked into the eye of
day;
The second best’s a gay good night and
quickly turn away.

William Butler Yeats

English

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About William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish symbolist poet, dramatist and mystic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He compiled the Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

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Also Known As

Alternative Names: W. B. Yeats • William Yeats • W.B. Yeats • WBY

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Lord Byron Alfred Tennyson John Keats Samuel Taylor Coleridge Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Additional quotes by William Butler Yeats

All the wild-witches, those most notable ladies
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.

The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.

If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say; Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best’s… - William Butler Yeats

About William Butler Yeats

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