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About this quote

What does it mean?
Love exists in flawed, humble places because wholeness requires experiencing brokenness.
In plain terms
Love lives in dirty places because true wholeness comes from being broken first.
What can you take from it?
Embrace imperfection and pain as necessary parts of a complete life.

Where it applies

  • healing after heartbreak
  • accepting self
  • discussing love

Putting it to work

  • therapy
  • self acceptance
  • relationship advice

Questions to consider

  • Must you be broken to be whole?
  • Where do you find love?

Another view

It romanticizes suffering as a prerequisite for love which may not always be true.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. 'Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,' I cried. 'My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied.'

    Permalink to quote #133
  2. What were all the world's alarms To mighty Paris when he found Sleep upon a golden bed That first dawn in Helen's arms?

    Permalink to quote #135
  3. Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.

    Permalink to quote #132

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