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About this quote

What does it mean?
Death is sudden and takes what we value, leaving what we waste.
In plain terms
Death takes the important and leaves the rest.
What can you take from it?
Value what you have.

Where it applies

  • grief
  • end of life
  • existential thought

Putting it to work

  • planning
  • prioritizing
  • reflection

Questions to consider

  • What do you leave behind?
  • How do you face death?

Another view

It is too fatalistic for practical living.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence.

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  2. Because there is safety in derision I talked about an apparition, I took no trouble to convince, Or seem plausible to a man of sense.

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  3. Down the mountain walls From where pan's cavern is Intolerable music falls. Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear, Belly, shoulder, bum, Flash fishlike; nymphs and…

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