"the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity"

[devilgrrl]

discuss....

[stranger81]

1. the best of what? worst of what?

[cali]

4. It's from a Yeat's poem entitled

The Second Coming, written in the wake of WWI.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[hiphopnation]

2. w.b. yeats, yes?

it's undisputed -- why? because part of the qualities of being "the best" means having a degree of humility and self-deprication and a constant questioning of yourself, in an overall effort to make yourself better, if that makes sense. the worst, however, do not possess said qualities -- are never striving to be better, already know "the truth" and are ready to unleash it on the world, and to strike down anyone that stands in the way of that goal.

my $0.02

[hiphopnation]

5. and of course there are many exceptions to the rule

but in general, i'd say it's sound.

it's from "The Second Coming" by Yeats

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[cali]

6. that sums it up neatly

good job.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Tedious Yeats quotation used by every Party on every other

since the day it was penned? That one?

[devilgrrl]

7. it has that "everything happens for a reason" stench to it - doesn't it?

So Yeats wrote it - must be just an opinion.