A Quote by William Butler Yeats
Evil comes to us men of imagination wearing as its mask all the virtues.
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Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.
Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor are the alpha virtues of men all over the world. They are the fundamental virtues of men because without them, no 'higher' virtues can be entertained. You need to be alive to philosophize. You can add to these virtues and you can create rules and moral codes to govern them, but if you remove them from the equation altogether you aren't just leaving behind the virtues that are specific to men, you are abandoning the virtues that make civilization possible.
Goodness was more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.
All politicians are going to mask to some degree in order to present themselves in away they think will get them votes. What's different in Obama's case is that he's wearing a racial mask, this 'bargainer's' mask, and I think very effectively, whereby he gives whites the benefit of the doubt. He's essentially saying, 'I am going to presume you are not racist, if you won't hold my race against me.' So, his mask is a distinctly racial one.
The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him to men of his time and place as the leader they want and need.
Even when I was a young kid, I always told my uncle that, when I became a wrestler, I wanted to be Rey Mysterio, Jr. and I wanted to wear the mask. I always pictured myself wearing a mask. I dreamed about it for so long. I wanted to be one of those luchadores who wore the mask, the cape, and the fancy outfits.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.
Freedom will cost you the mask you have on, the mask that feels so comfortable and is so hard to shed off, not because it fits so well but because you have been wearing it so long.
Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.
Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree?
When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.
Women wearing men's clothes are chic, men wearing women's clothes make us fall on the floor laughing.
The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.
The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?
In the twentieth century, men -- all of us -- find themselves compelled to commit or condone evil for the sake of preventing an evil believed to be greater. And the tragedy is that we do not know whether the evil we condone will not in the end be greater than the evil we seek to avert-- or be identified with.
Because the mask is your face, the face is a mask, so I'm thinking of the face as a mask because of the way I see faces is coming from an African vision of the mask which is the thing that we carry around with us, it is our presentation, it's our front, it's our face.
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