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About this quote

What does it mean?
Many miraculous things vanish because ordinary forces overshadow them.
In plain terms
Wonderful things disappear because common forces push them aside.
What can you take from it?
Ordinary forces overshadow miraculous things.

Where it applies

  • noticing what disappears
  • valuing rarity
  • critiquing society

Putting it to work

  • preserve art
  • notice small wonders
  • document loss

Questions to consider

  • What miracles have vanished?
  • Why do we overlook wonder?

Another view

It assumes all great things are protected only by secrecy or rarity.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. 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 enamelling To…

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  2. O what fine thought we had because we thought That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

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  3. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.

    Permalink to quote #110

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