"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."
-William Butler Yeats
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"Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.“
-William Butler Yeats
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"To be born woman is to know - although they do not speak of it at school - women must labor to be beautiful."
-William Butler Yeats
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"If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise."
-William Butler Yeats
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"Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation."
-William Butler Yeats
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"I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right."
-William Butler Yeats
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"Man can embody truth but he cannot know it."
-William Butler Yeats
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"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."
-Carlos Fuentes
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"If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."
-Strom Thurmond
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"For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats."
-Harry Browne
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"There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations."
-Claude Vorilhon
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"This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?"
-Azar Nafisi
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"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."
-Barney Frank
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