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.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Society is falling apart as the center fails and the worst people gain intensity.
- In plain terms
- The world is chaotic because good people are unsure and bad people are strong.
- What can you take from it?
- Order fails when conviction shifts to extremes.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is society falling apart?
- Who lacks conviction now?
Another view
It oversimplifies complex social dynamics into binaries.
More from William Butler Yeats
Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.
Permalink to quote #83 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 …
Permalink to quote #85 They say such different things at school.
Permalink to quote #82
Related quotes
Civilisation knows how to use such powers as it has, while the immense potentiality of the unlicensed is dissipated in vapour. Civilisation wins because it is …
John BuchanJohn Buchan quote #43 History does not repeat itself except with variations, and it is idle to look for exact parallels, but we can trace a resemblance between the conditions of his…
John BuchanJohn Buchan quote #61 Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
George WashingtonGeorge Washington quote #1