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About this quote

What does it mean?
Good and bad are closely linked, and friends die without warning.
In plain terms
Beauty needs ugliness, and friends die without telling you.
What can you take from it?
Embrace the mix of good and bad in life.

Where it applies

  • grief
  • philosophical reflection
  • friendship

Putting it to work

  • accept loss
  • acknowledge duality
  • value friends

Questions to consider

  • Is beauty dependent on ugliness?
  • Why do friends leave without warning?

Another view

Some truths are harsh and unhelpful.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.

    Permalink to quote #132
  2. But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.

    Permalink to quote #134
  3. At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, Where blood-begotten s…

    Permalink to quote #131

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