Without thwarted lusts and transmuted animosities even the most powerful men would remain mere gods.
A corollary (added July 2): To the degree a man gains the capacity to lust and despise without constraint, he is free to devolve into a god.
[Note of explanation: I just finished reading a book on paganism written by a right-wing European thinker. This aphorism is a dig at him and his vigorous and stunted religiosity. These day, I’m trying to purge my vocabulary of romantic words like “gods”, “wisdom”, “spirit”, etc., out of loyalty to the realities they fail to represent. Please excuse this lapse.]
Thanks for the links. The Yeats stuff is fascinating.
Congratulations on being the first person in 10 years to follow one of my links.
There’s also a corollary to this aphorism: “To the degree a man gains the capacity to lust and hate without constraint, he is free to devolve into a god.”