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One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed…

Quote byWilliam Butler Yeats · 1865–1939

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "If I Were Four-and-Twenty," printed in Irish Statesman (23 August 1919).

English (original)

One day when I was twenty-three or twenty-four this sentence seemed to form in my head, without my willing it, much as sentences form when we are half-asleep: "Hammer your thoughts into unity." For days I could think of nothing else, and for years I tested all I did by that sentence.

— William Butler Yeats

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