An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Yeats warns that intellectual hatred is destructive and advises that one should avoid letting opinions lead to bitterness.
- In plain terms
- Hating on an intellectual level is the worst kind of hate.
- What can you take from it?
- Avoid letting your opinions turn into hatred.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What beliefs fuel your anger?
- How can you disagree without hate?
Another view
It is hard to control deep-seated beliefs.
More from William Butler Yeats
To be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the…
Permalink to quote #99 All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own …
Permalink to quote #101 May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, …
Permalink to quote #98
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