If a poet interprets a poem of his own he limits its suggestibility.
William Butler YeatsRead
Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Evil can disguise itself as good, appealing to our imagination and virtues.
This quote highlights the deceptive nature of evil, suggesting that it often presents itself attractively, masking its true malevolence. William Butler Yeats warns that those who have a vivid imagination may be particularly susceptible to this disguise, as they might see virtue and goodness where there is none, leading to manipulation and betrayal.
Themes
EvilImaginationDeceptionVirtueMask
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate about morality, one might quote Yeats to emphasize the need for discernment.
More from William Butler Yeats
All quotes βIt was my first meeting with a philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless.
William Butler YeatsRead
But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler YeatsRead
How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.
William Butler YeatsRead
For he would be thinking of love Till the stars had run away And the shadows eaten the moon.
William Butler YeatsRead
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
William Butler YeatsRead
Similar quotes
The hero is strangely akin to those who die young.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
We experience life as a continuity, and only after it falls away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.
Teju ColeRead
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play _x000D_ And in one word, just nothing.
Michel De MontaigneRead
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Thomas HobbesRead
My hypothesis is not so much that the court is the natural expression of popular justice, but rather that its historical function is to ensnare it, to control it and strangle it, by re-inscribing it within institutions which are typical of a state apparatus.
Michel FoucaultRead
I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens.
Virginia WoolfRead