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A System Could Not Well Have Been Devised More Studiously Hostile To Human Happiness Than Marriage.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
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A System Could Not

Percy Bysshe Shelley
...
A System Could Not Well Have Been Devised More Studiously Hostile To Human Happiness Than Marriage.

Understanding the Quote: "a system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to..."

This quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley reflects deeply on the theme of marriage. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Marriage, Wells, Humans, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Percy Bysshe Shelley interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley is celebrated for insightful thoughts on marriage and wells. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Marriage
Wells
Humans
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The Most Refined Abstractions Of Logic Conduct To A View Of Life, Which, Though Startling To The Apprehension, Is, In Fact, That Which The Habitual Sense Of Its Repeated Combinations Has Extinguished In Us. It Strips, As It Were, The Painted Curtain From This Scene Of Things. I Confess That I Am One Of Those Who Are Unable To Refuse My Assent To The Conclusions Of Those Philosophers Who Assert That Nothing Exists But As It Is Perceived.
Life
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Facts
The Awful Shadow Of Some Unseen Power Floats Though Unseen Among Us; Visiting This Various World With As Inconstant Wing As Summer Winds That Creep From Flower To Flower; Like Moonbeams That Behind Some Piny Mountain Shower, It Visits With Inconstant Glance Each Human Heart And Countenance; Like Hues And Harmonies Of Evening, Like Clouds In Starlight Widely Spread, Like Memory Of Music Fled, Like Aught That For Its Grace May Be Dear, And Yet Dearer For Its Mystery.
Summer
Memories
Flower
Sometimes It's Better To Put Love Into Hugs Than To Put It Into Words. Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.
Soul
Hug
Lips
The Splendors Of The Firmament Of Time May Be Eclipsed, But Are Extinguished Not; Like Stars To Their Appointed Height They Climb And Death Is A Low Mist Which Cannot Blot The Brightness It May Veil.
Stars
Veils
May
Familiar Acts Are Beautiful Through Love.
Love
Life
Beautiful
The Flood Of Time Is Rolling On; We Stand Upon Its Brink, Whilst They Are Gone To Glide In Peace Down Death's Mysterious Stream. Have Ye Done Well?
Time
Rolling
Gone
If All The Thought Which Had Been Expended On The Construction Of Engines Of Agony And Death - The Modes Of Aggression And Defence, The Raising Of Armies, And The Acquirement Of Those Arts Of Tyranny And Falsehood Without Which Mixed Multitudes Could Neither Be Led Nor Governed - Had Been Employed To Promote The True Welfare And Extend The Real Empire Of Man, How Different Would Have Been The Present Situation Of Human Society!
Art
Real
Army
Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.
Deeds
Strange
Begets
The Wise Want Love; And Those Who Love Want Wisdom.
Love
Wise
Wisdom
Had This Author [sir W Drummond Academical Questions, Chap. Iii.], Instead Of Inveighing Against The Guilt And Absurdity Of Atheism, Demonstrated Its Falsehood, His Conduct Would Have, Been More Suited To The Modesty Of The Skeptic And The Toleration Of The Philosopher.
Guilt
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(title: To The Moon) Art Thou Pale For Weariness Of Climbing Heaven, And Gazing On The Earth, Wandering Companionless Among The Stars That Have A Different Birth,-- And Ever-changing, Like A Joyless Eye That Finds No Object Worth Its Constancy?
Art
Stars
Eye
At The Very Time That Philosophers Of The Most Enterprising Benevolence Were Founding In Greece Those Institutions Which Have Rendered It The Wonder And Luminary Of The World, Am I Required To Believe That The Weak And Wicked King Of An Obscure And Barbarous Nation, A Murderer, A Traitor And A Tyrant, Was The Man After God's Own Heart?
Atheist
Kings
Believe
Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity.
Inspirational
Life
Time
As Belief Is A Passion Of The Mind, No Degree Of Criminality Is Attachable To Disbelief.
Passion
Mind
Atheism
A Poet Is A Nightingale, Who Sits In Darkness And Sings To Cheer Its Own Solitude With Sweet Sounds; His Auditors Are As Men Entranced By The Melody Of An Unseen Musician, Who Feel That They Are Moved And Softened, Yet Know Not Whence Or Why.
Sweet
Cheer
Men
As Long As Skies Are Blue, And Fields Are Green Evening Must Usher Night, Night Urge The Morrow, Month Follow Month With Woe, And Year Wake Year To Sorrow
Night
Blue
Years
The Discussion Of Any Subject Is A Right That You Have Brought Into The World With Your Heart And Tongue. Resign Your Heart's Blood Before You Part With This Inestimable Privilege Of Man.
Heart
Men
Blood
In Each Human Heart Terror Survives The Ravin It Has Gorged: The Loftiest Fear All That They Would Disdain To Think Were True: Hypocrisy And Custom Make Their Minds The Fanes Of Many A Worship, Now Outworn. They Dare Not Devise Good For Man's Estate, And Yet They Know Not That They Do Not Dare.
Heart
Men
Thinking
When A Man Marries, Dies, Or Turns Hindu, His Best Friends Hear No More Of Him.
Men
Turns
Dies
One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdained For Thee To Disdain It.
Feelings
Thee
One Word
A Lovely Lady, Garmented In Light From Her Own Beauty.
Beauty
Light
Lovely Lady
What Is Love? It Is That Powerful Attraction Towards All That We Conceive, Or Fear, Or Hope Beyond Ourselves.
Love
Powerful
Attraction
Religion Pervades Intensely The Whole Frame Of Society, And Is According To The Temper Of The Mind Which It Inhabits, A Passion, A Persuasion, An Excuse, A Refuge; Never A Check.
Passion
Mind
Religion
The Breath Of Accusation Kills An Innocent Name, And Leaves For Lame Acquittal The Poor Life, Which Is A Mask Without It.
Names
Lame
Innocent
The Thoughts Which The Word "god" Suggests To The Human Mind Are Susceptible Of As Many Variations As Human Minds Themselves.
Mind
Variation
Humans
Lightning My Pilot Sits; In A Cavern Under Is Fettered The Thunder, It Struggles And Howls At Fits; Over Earth And Ocean, With Gentle Motion, This Pilot Is Guiding Me, Lured By The Love Of The Genii That Move In The Depths Of The Purple Sea; Over The Rills, And The Crags, And The Hills, Over The Lakes And The Plains, Wherever He Dream, Under Mountain Or Stream The Spirit He Loves Remains; And I All The While Bask In Heaven's Blue Smile, Whilst He Is Dissolving In Rains.
Dream
Rain
Ocean
Persevere Even Though Hell And Destruction Should Yawn Beneath Your Feet.
Perseverance
Feet
Persevere
Constancy Has Nothing Virtuous In Itself, Independently Of The Pleasure It Confers, And Partakes Of The Temporizing Spirit Of Vice In Proportion As It Endures Tamely Moral Defects Of Magnitude In The Object Of Its Indiscreet Choice.
Marriage
Choices
Vices
[l]ike Thee To Those In Sorrow, Comes To Bid A Sweet Good-morrow To The Rough Year Just Awake In Its Cradle On The Brake. The Brightest Hour Of Unborn Spring, Through The Winter Wandering, Found, It Seems, The Halcyon Morn To Hoar February Born.
Sweet
Spring
Winter
He Gave Man Speech, And Speech Created Thought, Which Is The Measure Of The Universe.
Men
Speech
Universe
Nothing Of Him That Doth Fade But Doth Suffer A Sea-change Into Something Rich And Strange
Change
Tombstone
Sea
Love's Very Pain Is Sweet
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Pain
We Look Before And After, And Pine For What Is Not; Our Sincerest Laughter With Some Pain Is Fraught; Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.
Happiness
Song
Laughter
Poetry Love's Philosophy The Fountains Mingle With The River And The Rivers With The Ocean, The Winds Of Heaven Mix For Ever With A Sweet Emotion; Nothing In The World Is Single, All Things By A Law Divine In One Another's Being Mingle— Why Not I With Thine? See The Mountains Kiss High Heaven, And The Waves Clasp One Another; No Sister-flower Would Be Forgiven If It Disdain'd Its Brother; And The Sunlight Clasps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea— What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?
Wedding
Sweet
Brother
The Psychological And Moral Comfort Of A Presence At Once Humble And Understanding-this Is The Greatest Benefit That The Dog Has Bestowed Upon Man.
Friendship
Dog
Humble
You Are Now In London, That Great Sea, Whose Ebb And Flow At Once Is Deaf And Loud, And On The Shore Vomits Its Wrecks, And Still Howls On For More. Yet In Its Depth What Treasures!
Sea
Ebb And Flow
Depth
Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain
Pain
Joy
Chaos
Let Me Set My Mournful Ditty To A Merry Measure; Thou Wilt Never Come For Pity, Thou Wilt Come For Pleasure; Pity Then Will Cut Away Those Cruel Wings, And Thou Wilt Stay.
Cutting
Wings
Pity
Poetry Lifts The Veil From The Hidden Beauty Of The World, And Makes Familiar Objects Be As If They Were Not Familiar.
Beauty
Poetry
World
Love's Very Pain Is Sweet, But Its Reward Is In The World Divine Which, If Not Here, It Builds Beyond The Grave.
Life
Sweet
Pain
Whatever May Be His True And Final Destination, There Is A Spirit Within Him At Enmity With Nothingness And Dissolution. This Is The Character Of All Life And Being.
Character
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Atheism
What! Alive, And So Bold, O Earth?
Alive
Earth
Government Has No Rights; It Is A Delegation From Several Individuals For The Purpose Of Securing Their Own. It Is Therefore Just, Only So Far As It Exists By Their Consent, Useful Only So Far As It Operates To Their Well-being.
Rights
Government
Purpose
Reviewers, With Some Rare Exceptions, Are A Most Stupid And Malignant Race. As A Bankrupt Thief Turns Thief-taker In Despair, So An Unsuccessful Author Turns Critic.
Stupid
Race
Despair
It Is Among Men Of Genius And Science That Atheism Alone Is Found.
Men
Religion
Atheism
I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.
Joy
Dust To The Dust! But The Pure Spirit Shall Flow Back To The Burning Fountain Whence It Came, A Portion Of The Eternal.
Death
Dust
Burning
The Warm Sun Is Failing, The Bleak Wind Is Wailing, The Bare Boughs Are Sighing, The Pale Flowers Are Dying, And The Year On The Earth Her Death-bed, In A Shroud Of Leaves Dead, Is Lying. . . .
Lying
Flower
Years
In A Drama Of The Highest Order There Is Little Food For Censure Or Hatred; It Teaches Rather Self-knowledge And Self-respect.
Respect
Drama
Self
I Arise From Dreams Of Thee In The First Sweet Sleep Of Night, When The Winds Are Breathing Low, And The Stars Are Shining Bright.
Love
Sexy
Dream
Reason Respects The Differences, And Imagination The Similitudes Of Things.
Differences
Imagination
Fantasy
Let The Advocate Of Animal Food, Force Himself To A Decisive Experiment On Its Fitness, And As Plutarch Recommends, Tear A Living Lamb With His Teeth, And Plunging His Head Into Its Vitals, Slake His Thirst With The Steaming Blood; When Fresh From The Deed Of Horror Let Him Revert To The Irresistible Instincts Of Nature That Would Rise In Judgment Against It, And Say, Nature Formed Me For Such Work As This. Then, And Then Only, Would He Be Consistent.
Animal
Blood
Tears
You Ought To Love All Mankind; Nay, Every Individual Of Mankind. You Ought Not To Love The Individuals Of Your Domestic Circles Less, But To Love Those Who Exist Beyond It More. Once Make The Feelings Of Confidence And Of Affection Universal, And The Distinctions Of Property And Power Will Vanish; Nor Are They To Be Abolished Without Substituting Something Equivalent In Mischief To Them, Until All Mankind Shall Acknowledge An Entire Community Of Rights.
Life
Rights
Circles
Thy Words Are Like A Cloud Of Winged Snakes.
Clouds
Snakes
Unbound
Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whatever It Touches.
Power
Pestilence
Poetry Strengthens That Faculty Which Is The Organ Of The Moral Nature Of Man, In The Same Manner As Exercise Strengthens A Limb.
Exercise
Men
Moral
Change Is Certain. Peace Is Followed By Disturbances; Departure Of Evil Men By Their Return. Such Recurrences Should Not Constitute Occasions For Sadness But Realities For Awareness, So That One May Be Happy In The Interim.
Sadness
Reality
Men
The More We Study The More We Discover Our Ignorance.
Ignorance
Study
Funny Exam
Nature Rejects The Monarch, Not The Man; The Subject, Not The Citizen... The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.
Men
Command Not
Soul
I Am The Daughter Of Earth And Water, And The Nursling Of The Sky; I Pass Through The Pores Of The Ocean And Shores; I Change, But I Cannot Die.
Daughter
Ocean
Clouds
Senseless Is The Breast And Cold Which Relenting Love Would Fold; Bloodless Are The Veins And Chill Which The Pulse Of Pain Did Fill; Every Little Living Nerve That From Bitter Words Did Swerve Round The Tortur'd Lips And Brow, Are Like Sapless Leaflets Now Frozen Upon December's Bough.
Pain
Pulse
Nerves
In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.
Atheist
Atheism
Facts
Every Fanatic Or Enemy Of Virtue Is Not At Liberty To Misrepresent The Greatest Geniuses And Most Heroic Defenders Of All That Is Valuable In This Mortal World.
Atheist
Enemy
Liberty
The Quick Dreams, The Passion-winged Ministers Of Thought.
Dream
Passion
Ministers
Ere Babylon Was Dust, The Magus Zoroaster, My Dead Child, Met His Own Image Walking In The Garden, That Apparition, Sole Of Men, He Saw.
Children
Men
Garden
There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man. Were The Mountains Of Gold And The Valleys Of Silver, The World Would Not Be One Grain Of Corn The Richer; No One Comfort Would Be Added To The Human Race.
Real
Work
Race
The Howl Of Self-interest Is Loud ... But The Heart Is Black Which Throbs Solely To Its Note.
Heart
Self
Black
Age Cannot Love Destroy, But Perfidy Can Blast The Flower, Even When In Most Unwary Hour It Blooms In Fancy's Bower. Age Cannot Love Destroy, But Perfidy Can Rend The Shrine In Which Its Vermeil Splendours Shine.
Flower
Shining
Age
Image Of Rugged Cliffs And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.
Art
Gone Love
Slumber
Thou Hast A Voice, Great Mountain, To Repeal. Large Codes Of Fraud And Woe; Not Understood By All, But Which The Wise, And Great, And Good Interpret, Or Make Felt, Or Deeply Feel.
Wise
Voice
Mountain
Poets, Not Otherwise Than Philosophers, Painters, Sculptors, And Musicians, Are, In One Sense, The Creators, And, In Another, The Creations, Of Their Age.
Age
Musician
Philosopher
O Cease! Must Hate And Death Return, Cease! Must Men Kill And Die? Cease! Drain Not To Its Dregs The Urn Of Bitter Prophecy. The World Is Weary Of The Past, Oh, Might It Die Or Rest At Last!
Hate
Past
Men
Love Is Free; To Promise For Ever To Love The Same Woman Is Not Less Absurd Than To Promise To Believe The Same Creed; Such A Vow In Both Cases Excludes Us From All Inquiry.
Love
Believe
Promise
Love's Pestilence, And Her Slow Dogs Of War.
Life
Dog
War
There Is No God. This Negation Must Be Understood Solely To Affect A Creative Deity. The Hypothesis Of A Pervading Spirit Co-eternal With The Universe Remains Unshaken.
Creative
Deities
Spirit
Let The Blue Sky Overhead, The Green Earth On Which Ye Tread, All That Must Eternal Be Witness The Solemnity.
Blue
Sky
Earth
The Emptiness And Folly Of Retaliation Are Apparent From Every Example Which Can Be Brought Forward. Not Only Jesus Christ, But The Most Eminent Professors Of Every Sect Of Philosophy, Have Reasoned Against This Futile Superstition.
Jesus
Philosophy
Example
Ah! What A Divine Religion Might Be Found Out If Charity Were Really Made The Principle Of It Instead Of Faith.
Love
Atheism
Principles
There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Luster In Its Sky...
Fall
Autumn
Sky
For This Is The Most Civil Sort Of Lie That Can Be Given To A Man's Face. I Now Say What I Think.
Lying
Men
Thinking
I Bring Fresh Showers For The Thirsting Flowers, From The Seas And The Streams; I Bear Light Shade For The Leaves When Laid In Their Noonday Dreams. From My Wings Are Shaken The Dews That Waken The Sweet Buds Every One, When Rocked To Rest On Their Mother's Breast, As She Dances About The Sun. I Wield The Flail Of The Lashing Hail, And Whiten The Green Plains Under, And Then Again I Dissolve It In Rain, And Laugh As I Pass In Thunder.
Mother
Dream
Sweet
Swiftly Walk O'er The Western Wave, Spirit Of Night! Out Of The Misty Eastern Cave, Where, All The Long And Lone Daylight, Thou Wovest Dreams Of Joyand Fear, Which Make Thee Terrible And Dear, Swift Be Thy Flight!
Dream
Night
Long
A God Made By Man Undoubtedly Has Need Of Man To Make Himself Known To Man.
Atheist
Men
Religion
My Father Time Is Weak And Gray With Waiting For A Better Day; See How Idiot-like He Stands, Fumbling With His Palsied Hands!
Time
Father
Hands
Wild Spirit, Which Art Moving Everywhere; Destroyer And Preserver; Hear, Oh, Hear!
Art
Moving
Spirit
To Suffer Woes Which Hope Thinks Infinite; To Forgive Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night; To Defy Power, Which Seems Omnipotent; To Love, And Bear; To Hope Till Hope Creates From It's Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates; Neither To Change, Not Falter, Nor Repent; This, Like Thy Glory, Titan, Is To Be Good, Great And Joyous,beautiful And Free; This Is Alone Life, Joy, Empire, And Victory
Beautiful
Night
Thinking
Most Wretched Men Are Cradled Into Poetry By Wrong: They Learn In Suffering What They Teach In Song.
Song
Learning
Men
If A Person's Religious Ideas Correspond Not With Your Own, Love Him Nevertheless
Love
Family
Happiness
We Live And Move And Think; But We Are Not The Creators Of Our Own Origin And Existence. We Are Not The Arbiters Of Every Motion Of Our Own Complicated Nature; We Are Not The Masters Of Our Own Imaginations And Moods Of Mental Being.
Moving
Thinking
Imagination
A Sensitive Plant In A Garden Grew, And The Young Winds Fed It With Silver Dew, And It Opened Its Fan Like Leaves To The Light, And Closed Them Beneath The Kisses Of Night.
Nature
Sunset
Kissing
War Is The Statesman's Game, The Priest's Delight, The Lawyer's Jest, The Hired Assassin's Trade.
Peace
War
Games
I Wield The Flail Of The Lashing Hail, And Whiten The Green Plains Under; And Then Again I Dissolve It In Rain, And Laugh As I Pass In Thunder.
Laughter
Rain
Clouds
The Old Laws Of England They Whose Reverend Heads With Age Are Gray, Children Of A Wiser Day; And Whose Solemn Voice Must Be Thine Own Echo Liberty!
Children
Echoes
Law
Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Of Saddest Thought.
Sad
Song
Musical
Mankind, Transmitting From Generation To Generation The Legacy Of Accumulated Vengeances, And Pursuing With The Feelings Of Duty The Misery Of Their Fellow-beings, Have Not Failed To Attribute To The Universal Cause A Character Analogous With Their Own. The Image Of This Invisible, Mysterious Being Is More Or Less Excellent And Perfect — Resembles More Or Less Its Original — In Proportion To The Perfection Of The Mind On Which It Is Impressed.
God
Character
Perfect
I Think That The Leaf Of A Tree, The Meanest Insect On Which We Trample, Are In Themselves Arguments More Conclusive Than Any Which Can Be Adduced That Some Vast Intellect Animates Infinity.
Thinking
Tree
Infinity
The World's Great Age Begins Anew, The Golden Years Return, The Earth Doth Like A Snake Renew Her Winter Weeds Outworn; Heaven Smiles, And Faiths And Empires Gleam, Like Wrecks Of A Dissolving Dream.
Weed
Dream
Winter
Less Oft Peace In Shelley's Mind, Than Calm In Waters Seen.
Water
Mind
Calm
In Proportion As A Man Is Selfish, So Far Has He Receded From The Motive Which Constitutes Virtue.
Selfish
Men
Virtue
In The Infancy Of Society Every Author Is Necessarily A Poet
Infancy Is
Literature
Poet
There Is No Sport In Hate Where All The Rage Is On One Side.
Sports
Hate
Sides
Everytime We Say That God Is The Author Of Some Phenomenon, That Signifies That We Are Ignorant Of How Such A Phenomenon Was Caused By The Forces Of Nature.
Ignorant
Force
Forces Of Nature
Men Must Reap The Things They Sow, Force From Force Must Ever Flow.
Men
Flow
Force
All Spirits Are Enslaved Which Serve Things Evil
Evil
Spirit
Positive Atheism
Poet's Food Is Love And Fame.
Fame
Poet
O Wild West Wind, Thou Breath Of Autumn's Being. Thou, From Whose Unseen Presence The Leaves Dead Are Driven, Like Ghosts From An Enchanter Fleeing.
Autumn
Wind
Unseen
... A Wild Dissolving Bliss Over My Frame He Breathed, Approaching Near, And Bent His Eyes Of Kindling Tenderness Near Mine, And On My Lips Impressed A Lingering Kiss
Eye
Kissing
Romantic Love
My Neighbour, Or My Servant, Or My Child, Has Done Me An Injury, And It Is Just That He Should Suffer An Injury In Return. Such Is The Doctrine Which Jesus Christ Summoned His Whole Resources Of Persuasion To Oppose.
Jesus
Children
Suffering
The Allegory Of Adam And Eve Eating Of The Tree Of Evil, And Entailing Upon Their Posterity The Wrath Of God And The Loss Of Everlasting Life, Admits Of No Other Explanation Than The Disease And Crime That Have Flowed From Unnatural Diet.
Loss
Wrath
Evil
A Christian, A Deist, A Turk, And A Jew, Have Equal Rights: They Are Men And Brethren.
Christian
Men
Rights
The Odious And Disgusting Aristocracy Of Wealth Is Built Upon The Ruins Of All That Is Good In Chivalry Or Republicanism; And Luxury Is The Forerunner Of A Barbarism Scarcely Capable Of Cure.
Luxury
Aristocracy
Ruins
It Is Our Will That Thus Enchains Us To Permitted Ill. We Might Be Otherwise, We Might Be All We Dream Of Happy, High, Majestical. Where Is The Love, Beauty And Truth We Seek, But In Our Mind? And If We Were Not Weak, Should We Be Less In Deed Than In Desire?
Dream
Love Is
Mind
Obedience Indeed Is Only The Pitiful And Cowardly Egotism Of Him Who Thinks That He Can Do Something Better Than Reason.
Thinking
Reason
Obedience
You Ought To Love All Mankind; Nay, Every Individual Of Mankind. You Ought Not To Love The Individuals Of Your Domestic Circles Less, But To Love Those Who Exist Beyond It More.
Love
Circles
Individual
I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!
The Cemetery Is An Open Space Among The Ruins, Covered In Winter With Violets And Daisies. It Might Make One In Love With Death, To Think That One Should Be Buried In So Sweet A Place.
Sweet
Winter
Thinking
Thou Who Didst Waken From His Summer Dreams The Blue Mediterranean, Where He Lay, Lull'd By The Coil Of His Crystalline Streams Beside A Pumice Isle In Baiæ's Bay, And Saw In Sleep Old Palaces And Towers Quivering Within The Wave's Intenser Day, All Overgrown With Azure Moss And Flowers So Sweet, The Sense Faints Picturing Them.
Summer
Dream
Sweet
Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!
Paradise
Exile
January Gray Is Here, Like A Sexton By Her Grave; February Bears The Bier, March With Grief Doth Howl And Rave, And April Weeps -- But, O Ye Hours! Follow With May's Fairest Flowers.
Time
Grief
Flower
First Our Pleasures Die - And Then Our Hopes, And Then Our Fears - And When These Are Dead, The Debt Is Due Dust Claims Dust - And We Die Too.
Dust
Debt
Firsts
Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.
Hope
Clay
Cold
The Advocates Of Literal Interpretation Have Been The Most Efficacious Enemies Of Those Doctrines Whose Nature They Profess To Venerate.
Enemy
Doctrine
Interpretation
Chastity Is A Monkish And Evangelical Superstition, A Greater Foe To Natural Temperance Even Than Unintellectual Sensuality; It Strikes At The Root Of All Domestic Happiness, And Consigns More Than Half Of The Human Race To Misery.
Happiness
Race
Roots
That Orbed Maiden, With White Fire Laden, Whom Mortals Call The Moon.
Moon
Night
Fire
Duty And Dereliction Guide Thee Back To Solitude.
War
Solitude
Thee
Sounds Of Vernal Showers On The Twinkling Grass, Rain Awaken'd Flowers, All That Ever Was Joyous, And Clear, And Fresh, Thy Music Doth Surpass
Rain
Flower
Sound
Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.
Action
Laurels
Faster
When My Cats Aren't Happy, I'm Not Happy. Not Because I Care About Their Mood But Because I Know They're Just Sitting There Thinking Up Ways To Get Even.
Happy
Humorous
Cat
When Merciless Ambition, Or Mad Zeal, Has Led Two Hosts Of Dupes To Battlefield, That, Blind, They There May Dig Each Other's Graves, And Call The Sad Work Glory.
Ambition
Two
Mad
I Am Not Much Of A Hand At Love Songs, You See I Mingle Metaphysics With Even This, But Perhaps In This Age Of Philosophy That May Be Excused.
Song
Philosophy
Hands
The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.
Imagination
Moral
Instruments
Gold Is A Living God And Rules In Scorn, All Earthly Things But Virtue.
Gold
Virtue
Scorn
The Rich Have Become Richer, And The Poor Have Become Poorer; And The Vessel Of The State Is Driven Between The Scylla And Charybdis Of Anarchy And Despotism.
Scylla
Anarchy
Rich
Music, When Soft Voices Die Vibrates In The Memory.
Music
Memories
Voice
If God Has Spoken, Why Is The World Not Convinced.
Atheist
Religion
Atheism
I Am Convinced That There Can Be No Regeneration Of Mankind Until Laughter Is Put Down.
Laughter
Mankind
Regeneration
O! I Burn With Impatience For The Moment Of The Dissolution Of Intolerance; It Has Injured Me.
Moments
Intolerance
Impatience
Music, When Soft Voices Die, Vibrates In The Memory; Odours, When Sweet Violets Sicken, Live Within The Sense They Quicken. Rose Leaves, When The Rose Is Dead, Are Heap'd For The Belovèd's Bed; And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.
Love
Sweet
Art
Love! Dearest, Sweetest Power! How Much Are We Indebted To Thee! How Much Superior Are Even Thy Miseries To The Pleasures Which Arise From Other Sources!
Love
Misery
Pleasure
That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.
Sweet
Pain
Sleep
O Weep For Adonis - He Is Dead." "peace. He Is Not Dead He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Wakened From The Dream Of Life
Death
Dream
Sleep
I Silently Laugh At My Own Cenotaph, And Out Of The Caverns Of Rain, Like A Child From The Womb, Like A Ghost From The Tomb, I Arise And Unbuild It Again.
Children
Rain
Clouds
The Moon Of Mahomet Arose, And It Shall Set; While, Blazoned As On Heaven's Immortal Noon, The Cross Leads Generations On.
Moon
Heaven
Generations
And On The Pedestal These Words Appear:
 'my Name Is Ozymandias, King Of Kings:
 Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!' 
nothing Beside Remains. Round The Decay
 Of That Colossal Wreck, Boundless And Bare
 The Lone And Level Sands Stretch Far Away.
Kings
Names
Despair
Within My Heart Is The Lamp Of Love, And That Is Day!
Heart
Lamps
My Heart
Underneath Day's Azure Eyes, Ocean's Nursling, Venice Lies, A Peopled Labyrinth Of Walls, Amphitrite's Destined Halls
Wall
Lying
Ocean
But Greece And Her Foundations Are Built Below The Tide Of War, Based On The Crystalline Sea Of Thought And Its Eternity; Her Citizens, Imperial Spirits, Rule The Present From The Past, On All This World Of Men Inherits Their Seal Is Set.
War
Past
Men
Life And The World, Or Whatever We Call That Which We Are And Feel, Is An Astonishing Thing. The Mist Of Familiarity Obscures From Us The Wonder Of Our Being. We Are Struck With Admiration At Some Of Its Transient Modifications, But It Is Itself The Great Miracle.
Miracle
World
Admiration
Narrow The Heart That Loves, The Brain That Contemplates, The Life That Wears, The Spirit That Creates One Object, And One Form, And Builds Thereby A Sepulchre For Its Eternity.
Heart
Brain
Spirit
Just A Tender Sense Of My Own Process, That Holds Something Of My Connection With The Divine.
Connections
Divinity
Divine
The Day Becomes More Solemn And Serene When Noon Is Past; There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Lustre In Its Sky, Which Through The Summer Is Not Heard Or Seen, As If It Could Not Be, As If It Had Not Been! Thus Let Thy Power, Which Like The Truth Of Nature On My Passive Youth Descended, To My Onward Life Supply Its Calm, To One Who Worships Thee, And Every Form Containing Thee, Whom, Spirit Fair, Thy Spells Did Bind To Fear Himself, And Love All Human Kind.
Summer
Autumn
Past
One Nightingale In An Interfluous Wood Satiate The Hungry Dark With Melody.
Dark
Woods
Hungry
Truth Has Always Been Found To Promote The Best Interests Of Mankind.
Wisdom
Found
Mankind
It Is Only By Hearsay (by Word Of Mouth Passed Down From Generation To Generation) That Whole Peoples Adore The God Of Their Fathers And Of Their Priests: Authority, Confidence, Submission And Custom With Them Take The Place Of Conviction Or Of Proofs: They Prostrate Themselves And Pray, Because Their Fathers Taught Them To Prostrate Themselves And Pray: But Why Did Their Fathers Fall On Their Knees?
Father
Fall
Atheism
So Is Hope Changed For Despair-one Laid Upon The Shelf, We Take The Other. Under Heaven's High Cope Fortune Is God-all You Endure And Do Depends On Circumstance As Much As You.
Heaven
Despair
Fortune
The Mind In Creation Is As A Fading Coal, Which Some Invisible Influence, Like An Inconstant Wind, Awakens To Transitory Brightness; This Power Arises From Within...could This Influence Be Durable In Its Original Purity And Force, It Is Impossible To Predict The Greatness Of The Result; But When Composition Begins, Inspiration Is Already On The Decline; And The Most Glorious Poetry That Has Been Communicated To The World Is Probably A Feeble Shadow Of The Original Conceptions Of The Poet.
Inspiration
Greatness
Wind
The Most Fertile Districts Of The Habitable Globe Are Now Actually Cultivated By Men For Animals, At A Delay And Waste Of Aliment Absolutely Incapable Of Calculation
Animal
Men
Delay
God Is A Hypothesis, And, As Such, Stands In Need Of Proof; The Onus Probandi Rests On The Theist.
Needs
Proof
Hypothesis
My Name Is Ozymandias, King Of Kings: Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!
Kings
Civilization
Names
The Pleasure That Is In Sorrow Is Sweeter Than The Pleasure Of Pleasure Itself.
Sorrow
Pleasure
Rulers, Who Neither See, Nor Feel, Nor Know, But Leech-like To Their Fainting Country Cling, Till They Drop, Blind In Blood, Without A Blow, - A People Starved And Stabbed In The Untilled Field.
Country
Blow
Blood
I See The Waves Upon The Shore, Like Light Dissolved In Star-showers, Thrown.
Stars
Light
Wave
The Galilean Is Not A Favorite Of Mine. So Far From Owing Him Any Thanks For His Favor, I Cannot Avoid Confessing That I Owe A Secret Grudge To His Carpentership.
Secret
Owing
Favors
Poetry Is A Sword Of Lightning, Ever Unsheathed, Which Consumes The Scabbard That Would Contain It.
Lightning
Poetry Is
Religion! But For Thee, Prolific Fiend, Who Peoplest Earth With Demons, Hell With Men, And Heaven With Slaves!
Men
Heaven
Religion
I Love Tranquil Solitude, And Such Society As Is Quiet, Wise, And Good; Between Thee And Me What Difference? But Thou Dost Possess The Things I Seek, Not Love Them Less.
Wise
Differences
Solitude
Lost Echo Sits Amid The Voiceless Mountains, And Feeds Her Grief.
Grief
Echoes
Mountain
Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.
Life
Poetry
World
Kings Are Like Stars,-they Rise And Set, They Have The Worship Of The World, But No Repose.
Kings
Stars
World
The Babe Is At Peace Within The Womb, The Corpse Is At Rest Within The Tomb. We Begin In What We End.
Death
Ends
Babe
...what Are Numbers Knit By Force Or Custom? Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself; In It Must Be Supreme, Establishing His Throne On Vanquished Will, Quelling The Anarchy Of Hopes And Fears, Being Himself Alone.
Men
Numbers
Would Be
I Was An Infant When My Mother Went To See An Atheist Burned. She Took Me There. The Dark-robed Priests Were Met Around The Pile; The Multitude Was Gazing Silently; And As The Culprit Passed With Dauntless Mien, Tempered Disdain In His Unaltering Eye, Mixed With A Quiet Smile, Shone Calmly Forth; The Thirsty Fire Crept Round His Manly Limbs; His Resolute Eyes Were Scorched To Blindness Soon; His Death-pang Rent My Heart! The Insensate Mob Uttered A Cry Of Triumph, And I Wept. Weep Not, Child! Cried My Mother, For That Man Has Said, 'there Is No God.'
Mother
Atheist
Children
When A Thing Is Said To Be Not Worth Refuting You May Be Sure That Either It Is Flagrantly Stupid - In Which Case All Comment Is Superfluous - Or It Is Something Formidable, The Very Crux Of The Problem.
Truth
Stupid
May
I Stood Within The City Disinterred; And Heard The Autumnal Leaves Like Light Footfalls Of Spirits Passng Through The Streets; And Heard The Mountain's Slumberous Voice At Intervals Thrill Through Those Roofless Halls; The Oracular Thunder Penetrating Shook The Listening Soul In My Suspended Blood.
Light
Blood
Cities
The Sunlight Claps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea: What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?
Kissing
Romantic Love
Sea
One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdain'd For Thee To Disdain It. One Hope Too Like Dispair For Prudence To Smother, I Can Give Not What Men Call Love: But Wilt Thou Accept Not The Worship The Heart Lifts Above And Heaven Rejects Not: The Desire Of The Moth For The Star, The Devotion Of Something Afar From The Sphere Of Our Sorrow?
Stars
Heart
Men
I Love Love - Though He Has Wings, And Like Light Can Flee, But Above All Other Things, Spirit, I Love Thee - Thou Art Love And Life! Oh Come, Make Once More My Heart Thy Home.
Life
Art
Home
No Mistake Is More To Be Deplored Than The Conception That A System Of Morals And Religion Should Derive Any Portion Of Its Authority Either From The Circumstance Of Its Novelty Or Its Antiquity, That It Should Be Judged Excellent, Not Because It Is Reasonable Or True, But Because No Person Has Ever Thought Of It Before, Or Because It Has Been Thought Of From The Beginning Of Time.
Mistake
Novelty
Moral
Many A Green Isle Needs Must Be In The Deep Wide Sea Of Misery, Or The Mariner, Worn And Wan, Never Thus Could Voyage On.
Sea
Needs
Green
Here I Swear, And As I Break My Oath May ... Eternity Blast Me, Here I Swear That Never Will I Forgive Christianity! It Is The Only Point On Which I Allow Myself To Encourage Revenge... Oh, How I Wish I Were The Antichrist, That It Were Mine To Crush The Demon; To Hurl Him To His Native Hell Never To Rise Again - I Expect To Gratify Some Of This Insatiable Feeling In Poetry.
Crush
Revenge
Feelings
It Is Only By Softening And Disguising Dead Flesh By Culinary Preparation That It Is Rendered Susceptible Of Mastication Or Digestion, And That The Sight Of Its Bloody Juices And Raw Horror Does Not Excite Intolerable Loathing And Disgust.
Sight
Vegetarian Diet
Vegetarianism
A Poet Is A Nightingale, Who Sits In Darkness And Sings To Cheer Its Own Solitude With Sweet Sounds.
Sweet
Cheer
Being Alone
A System Could Not Well Have Been Devised More Studiously Hostile To Human Happiness Than Marriage.
Marriage
Wells
Humans
I Have Neither Curiosity, Interest, Pain Nor Pleasure, In Anything, Good Or Evil, They Can Say Of Me. I Feel Only A Slight Disgust, And A Sort Of Wonder That They Presume To Write My Name.
Pain
Writing
Names
By All That Is Sacred In Our Hope For The Human Race, I Conjure Those Who Love Happiness And Truth To Give A Fair Trial To The Vegetable System!
Race
Vegetarianism
Vegetables
God Is Represented As Infinite, Eternal, Incomprehensible; He Is Contained Under Every Predicate In Non That The Logic Of Ignorance Could Fabricate.
Ignorance
Logic
Infinite
Lie Bills And Calculations Much Perplexed, With Steam-boats, Frigates, And Machinery Quaint Traced Over Them In Blue And Yellow Paint.
Lying
Blue
Yellow
It Is A Modest Creed, And Yet Pleasant If One Considers It, To Own That Death Itself Must Be, Like All The Rest, A Mockery.
Death
Creeds
Modest
Know Ye What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Love, To Believe In Loveliness, To Believe In Belief.
Children
Believe
Water
Think Ye By Gazing On Each Other's Eyes To Multiply Your Lovely Selves?
Eye
Thinking
Self
To Hope Till Hope Creates From Its Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates.
Hope
Wrecks
Unbound
Our Adonais Has Drunk Poisonoh! What Deaf And Viperous Murderer Could Crown Life's Early Cup With Such A Draught Of Woe?
Drunk
Crowns
Woe
I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.
Life
Pain
Compassion
The Soul's Joy Lies In Doing.
Happiness
Laughter
Lying
O Heart, And Mind, And Thoughts! What Thing Do You Hope To Inherit In The Grave Below?
Heart
Mind
Graves
Thou Demandest What Is Love? It Is That Powerful Attraction Towards All That We Conceive, Or Fear, Or Hope Beyond Ourselves, When We Find Within Our Own Thoughts The Chasm Of An Insufficient Void, And Seek To Awaken In All Things That Are, A Community With What We Experience Within Ourselves.
Love
Powerful
Community
We Rest; A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep. We Rise; One Wand'ring Thought Pollutes The Day. We Feel, Conceive, Or Reason; Laugh Or Weep, Embrace Fond Woe, Or Cast Our Cares Away; It Is The Same: For, Be It Joy Or Sorrow, The Path Of Its Departure Still Is Free. Man's Yesterday May Ne'er Be Like His Morrow; Nought May Endure But Mutability!
Dream
Sleep
Men
I Have Made My Bed In Charnels And On Coffins, Where Black Death Keeps Record Of The Trophies Won
Black
Records
Trophies
This Is Heaven, When Pain And Evil Cease, And When The Benignant Principle, Untrammelled And Uncontrolled, Visits In The Fulness Of Its Power The Universal Frame Of Things.
Pain
Evil
Heaven
There Is Eloquence In The Tongueless Wind, And A Melody In The Flowing Brooks And The Rustling Of The Reeds Beside Them, Which By Their Inconceivable Relation To Something Within The Soul, Awaken The Spirits To A Dance Of Breathless Rapture, And Bring Tears Of Mysterious Tenderness To The Eyes, Like The Enthusiasm Of Patriotic Success, Or The Voice Of One Beloved Singing To You Alone.
Patriotic
Eye
Wind
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