Quotation
Quote by William Butler Yeats
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
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Understanding this quote
The quote contrasts two kinds of conflict. Disagreement with other people becomes rhetoric: language used to argue or persuade. Struggle within oneself becomes poetry, because private tension is shaped into expressive words. It presents poetry as a way of giving form to inner conflict, while rhetoric gives form to public debate.
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- Oxford University Research Archive
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- Article
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