Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Yeats criticizes conformist society and imagines how radical figures like Catullus would be judged by them.
In plain terms
Everyone thinks the same and acts the same so they would not understand a rebel.
What can you take from it?
Conformity makes people unable to understand true originality.

Where it applies

  • artistic circles
  • work environments
  • social groups

Putting it to work

  • question peer pressure
  • value individuality

Questions to consider

  • Do you think like everyone else?
  • Who would surprise your circle?

Another view

Radical figures are often misunderstood.

More from William Butler Yeats

  1. I know what wages beauty gives, How hard a life her servant lives, Yet praise the winters gone: There is not a fool can call me friend, And I may dine at journ…

    Permalink to quote #74
  2. When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, F…

    Permalink to quote #76
  3. I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan C…

    Permalink to quote #73

Related quotes

  1. Artists shouldn't be made famous. You know... they're just ... as important as... um doctors, and priests ... or maybe not as important sometimes, and yet they…

    Kate BushKate Bush quote #1
  2. What life means to me is to put the content of Shelley into the form of Zola. The proletarian writer is a writer with a purpose; he thinks no more of 'art for …

    Upton SinclairUpton Sinclair quote #1
  3. I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts. T…

    Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut quote #1