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About this quote

What does it mean?
Solitude is valuable when shared with a friend who understands without needing to see.
In plain terms
I love planned time alone with a friend who does not ask questions when I am confused.
What can you take from it?
Find friends who respect your need for quiet and don't demand explanations.

Where it applies

  • social anxiety
  • deep work
  • dating

Putting it to work

  • making friends
  • setting boundaries
  • writing

Questions to consider

  • Do you have a friend like this?
  • What do you do in silence?

Another view

It assumes such understanding friends exist and are easy to find.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. 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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  2. Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.

    Permalink to quote #166
  3. A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose.

    Permalink to quote #163

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