A Quote by William Butler Yeats
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
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Survival is not possible if the best of us lack all conviction, while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity.
The best people in a dying culture are the outcasts considered crazy by the leaders; the ones most disillusioned with their own culture. In Yeats' phrase, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Intense emotional attachment to any value, any virtue, any set of "shoulds" is a disease, a mental illness, a condition of self-murder and cultural assassination.
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.
The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.
Many excellent artists working today unfortunately lack the indispensable gifts necessary for demagoguery and self-promotion, while the bad ones are full of passionate intensity.
Innocence is drowned in anarchy. The best lack conviction given time to think, and the worst are full of passion without mercy.
Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.
As an actor I can sort of smell a duff note, that isn't full of that much conviction. My worst thing with directors is when I know more than them about the character.
I've noticed that there can be a visceral reaction to strong statements about poetry, as if anyone who has an opinion and expresses it is shutting people down. It's funny to see that expressed, and then to go back and read poetic statements by the great poets of the past: they are full of a passionate conviction! It is clearly possible to express strong feelings about poetry while also defending the absolute right of myriad approaches.
The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or false. The importance of the strength of our conviction is only to provide a proportionately strong incentive to find out if the hypothesis will stand up to critical evaluation.
[On being deaf:] We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in full view the worst and the best that can be made of our lot. The worst is, either to sink under the trial, or to be made callous by it. The best is, to be as wise as is possible under a great disability, and as happy as is possible under a great privation.
I think the best writing is full of honesty and conviction. A lot of people are afraid to reveal much of themselves.
If you are anticipating the worst while hoping for the best, you will get the worst. The things that happen to you are in direct accordance with the things wherein you place your faith. Believe you are licked - and you are.
I approach my work with a passionate intensity, acting as if its success depends entirely on me. "But once I've done my best, I try to let go as much as possible and have no expectations about how my work will be received by the world."
While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others.
The world is full of tragedy; and sympathy, a little common sympathy, can do so much to soften the worst of grief. It is for the lack of that, that people despair and go down.
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