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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?

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

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At The Very Time

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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?

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I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

It Is Impossible That Had Buonaparte Descended From A Race Of Vegetable Feeders That He Could Have Had Either The Inclination Or The Power To Ascend The Throne Of The Bourbons.

Twin-sister Of Religion, Selfishness.

The More We Study The More We Discover Our Ignorance.

Sorrow, Terror, Anguish, Despair Itself Are Often The Chosen Expressions Of An Approximation To The Highest Good. Our Sympathy In Tragic Fiction Depends On This Principle; Tragedy Delights By Affording A Shadow Of The Pleasure Which Exists In Pain. This Is The Source Also Of The Melancholy Which Is Inseparable From The Sweetest Melody. The Pleasure That Is In Sorrow Is Sweeter Than The Pleasure Of Pleasure Itself.

I Know The Past And Thence I Will Essay To Glean A Warning For The Future, So That Man May Profit By His Errors, And Derive Experience From His Folly; For, When The Power Of Imparting Joy Is Equal To The Will, The Human Soul Requires No Other Heaven.

Most Wretched Men Are Cradled Into Poetry By Wrong: They Learn In Suffering What They Teach In Song.

Tragedy Delights By Affording A Shadow Of The Pleasure Which Exists In Pain.

How Wonderful Is Death! Death And His Brother Sleep.

The One Remains, The Many Change And Pass; Heaven's Light Forever Shines, Earth's Shadows Fly; Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity, Until Death Tramples It To Fragments.

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.

Near That A Dusty Paint-box, Some Odd Hooks, A Half-burnt Match, An Ivory Block, Three Books, Where Conic Sections, Spherics, Logarithms, To Great Laplace, From Saunderson And Sims, Lie Heaped In Their Harmonious Disarray Of Figures,-disentangle Them Who May.

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

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.

The Wise Want Love; And Those Who Love Want Wisdom.

History Is A Cyclic Poem Written By Time Upon The Memories Of Man.

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.

The Awful Shadow Of Some Unseen Power Floats, Tho' Unseen, Amongst Us.

Belief Is Involuntary; Nothing Involuntary Is Meritorious Or Reprehensible. A Man Ought Not To Be Considered Worse Or Better For His Belief.

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. For After The Rain When With Never A Stain The Pavilion Of Heaven Is Bare, And The Winds And Sunbeams With Their Convex Gleams Build Up The Blue Dome Of Air, 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.

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.

One Word Is Too Often Profaned For Me To Profane It, One Feeling Too Falsely Disdained For Thee To Disdain It.

Honour Sits Smiling At The Sale Of Truth.

O World! O Life! O Time! On Whose Last Steps I Climb

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.

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.

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.

I Am Convinced That There Can Be No Regeneration Of Mankind Until Laughter Is Put Down.

Nothing Wilts Faster Than Laurels That Have Been Rested Upon.

Peace, Peace! He Is Not Dead, He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life - 'tis We, Who Lost In Stormy Visions, Keep With Phantoms An Unprofitable Strife.

There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Luster In Its Sky, Which Through The Summer Is Not Heard Or Seen, As If It Could Not Be, As If It Had Not Been!

Deep Truth Is Imageless.

All Of Us Who Are Worth Anything, Spend Our Manhood In Unlearning The Follies, Or Expiating The Mistakes Of Our Youth.

Self Improvement

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.

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.

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.

He Hath Awakened From The Dream Of Life.

I Know The Cause Of All Human Disappointment -- Worldly Prejudice.

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!

... Virtue Owns A More Eternal Foe Than Force Or Fraud: Old Custom, Legal Crime, And Bloody Faith The Foulest Birth Of Time.

Human Vanity Is So Constituted That It Stiffens Before Difficulties. The More An Object Conceals Itself From Our Eyes, The Greater The Effort We Make To Seize It, Because It Pricks Our Pride, It Excites Our Curiosity And It Appears Interesting. In Fighting For His God Everyone, In Fact, Fights Only For The Interest Of His Own Vanity, Which, Of All The Passions Produced Bye The Mal-organization Of Society, Is The Quickest To Take Offense, And The Most Capable Of Committing The Greatest Follies.

There Is No Disease, Bodily Or Mental, Which Adoption Of Vegetable Diet, And Pure Water Has Not Infallibly Mitigated, Wherever The Experiment Has Been Fairly Tried.

It Is Among Men Of Genius And Science That Atheism Alone Is Found.

Mont Blanc Yet Gleams On High: The Power Is There, The Still And Solemn Power Of Many Sights And Many Sounds, And Much Of Life And Death. In The Long Glare Of Day, The Snows Descend Upon That Mountain; None Beholds Them There, Nor When The Flakes Burn In The Sinking Sun, Or The Sunbeams Dart Through Them.

The Sunlight Claps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea: What Are All These Kissings Worth, If Thou Kiss Not Me?

Death Is The Veil Which Those Who Live Call Life; They Sleep, And It Is Lifted.

Jesus Christ Represented God As The Principle Of All Good, The Source Of All Happiness, The Wise And Benevolent Creator And Preserver Of All Living Things. But The Interpreters Of His Doctrines Have Confounded The Good And The Evil Principle.

Can Man Be Free If Woman Be A Slave?

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?

O'er Egypt's Land Of Memory Floods Are Level, And They Are Thine, O Nile! And Well Thou Knowest The Soul-sustaining Airs And Blasts Of Evil, And Fruits, And Poisons Spring Where'er Thou Flowest.

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.

A Single Word Even May Be A Spark Of Inextinguishable Thought

I Cannot Endure The Horror, The Evil, Which Comes To Self In Solitude.

As Belief Is A Passion Of The Mind, No Degree Of Criminality Is Attachable To Disbelief.

Their Errors Have Been Weighed And Found To Have Been Dust In The Balance; If Their Sins Were As Scarlet, They Are Now White As Snow: They Have Been Washed In The Blood Of The Mediator And The Redeemer, Time.

Far Clouds Of Feathery Gold, Shaded With Deepest Purple, Gleam Like Islands On A Dark Blue Sea.

Worlds On Worlds Are Rolling Ever From Creation To Decay, Like The Bubbles On A River Sparkling, Bursting, Borne Away.

Just A Tender Sense Of My Own Process, That Holds Something Of My Connection With The Divine.

To Hearts Which Near Each Other Move From Evening Close To Morning Light,the Night Is Good; Because, My Love,they Never Say Good-night.

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.

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

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.

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.

Worse Than A Bloody Hand Is A Hard Heart.

Music, When Soft Voices Die Vibrates In The Memory.

In The Golden Lightning Of The Sunken Sun O'er Which Clouds Are Brightening, Thou Dost Float And Run Like An Unbodied Joy Whose Race Is Just Begun.

Jesus Christ Opposed With Earnest Eloquence The Panic Fears And Hateful Superstitions Which Have Enslaved Mankind For Ages.

Oh, That The Wise From Their Bright Minds Would Kindle Such Lamps Within The Dome Of This Dim World That The Pale Name Of Priest Might Shrink And Dwindle Into The Hell From Which It First Was Furled.

Persevere Even Though Hell And Destruction Should Yawn Beneath Your Feet.

Poets, Not Otherwise Than Philosophers, Painters, Sculptors, And Musicians, Are, In One Sense, The Creators, And, In Another, The Creations, Of Their Age.

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. . . .

In Proportion As A Man Is Selfish, So Far Has He Receded From The Motive Which Constitutes Virtue.

Wild Spirit, Which Art Moving Everywhere; Destroyer And Preserver; Hear, Oh, Hear!

And The Rose Like A Nymph To The Bath Addrest, Which Unveiled The Depth Of Her Glowing Breast, Till, Fold After Fold, To The Fainting Air, The Soul Of Her Beauty And Love Lay Bare.

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.

Revenge And Wrong Bring Forth Their Kind; The Foul Cubs Like Their Parents Are.

He Has Outsoared The Shadow Of Our Night; Envy And Calumny And Hate And Pain, And That Unrest Which Men Miscall Delight, Can Touch Him Not And Torture Not Again; From The Contagion Of The World's Slow Stain, He Is Secure.

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.

The Advocates Of Literal Interpretation Have Been The Most Efficacious Enemies Of Those Doctrines Whose Nature They Profess To Venerate.

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.

Sow Seed--but Let No Tyrant Reap; Find Wealth--let No Imposter Heap; Weave Robes--let Not The Idle Wear; Forge Arms--in Your Defence To Bear.

Poetry Is Not Like Reasoning, A Power To Be Exerted According To The Determination Of The Will. A Man Cannot Say, 'i Will Compose Poetry.' The Greatest Poet Even Cannot Say It; For The Mind In Creation Is As A Fading Coal, Which Some Invisible Influence, Like An Inconstant Wind, Awakens To Transitory Brightness...and The Conscious Portions Of Our Natures Are Unprophetic Either Of Its Approach Or Its Departure.

How Beautiful Is Sunset When The Glow Of Heaven Descends Upon A Land Like Thee, Thou Paradise Of Exiles, Italy!

The Quick Dreams, The Passion-winged Ministers Of Thought.

I Fall Upon The Thorns Of Life.

Let The Blue Sky Overhead, The Green Earth On Which Ye Tread, All That Must Eternal Be Witness The Solemnity.

In The Firm Expectation That When London Shall Be A Habitation Of Bitterns, When St. Paul And Westminster Abbey Shall Stand Shapeless And Nameless Ruins In The Midst Of An Unpeopled Marsh, When The Piers Of Waterloo Bridge Shall Become The Nuclei Of Islets Of Reeds And Osiers, And Cast The Jagged Shadows Of Their Broken Arches On The Solitary Stream, Some Transatlantic Commentator Will Be Weighing In The Scales Of Some New And Now Unimagined System Of Criticism The Respective Merits Of The Bells And The Fudges And Their Historians.

Forget The Dead, The Past? O Yet There Are Ghosts That May Take Revenge For It, Memories That Make The Heart A Tomb, Regrets Which Gild Thro’ The Spirit’s Gloom, And With Ghastly Whispers Tell That Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain.

Lie Bills And Calculations Much Perplexed, With Steam-boats, Frigates, And Machinery Quaint Traced Over Them In Blue And Yellow Paint.

The Thoughts Which The Word "god" Suggests To The Human Mind Are Susceptible Of As Many Variations As Human Minds Themselves.

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?

Power, Like A Desolating Pestilence, Pollutes Whatever It Touches.

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

Think Ye By Gazing On Each Other's Eyes To Multiply Your Lovely Selves?

Life, Like A Dome Of Many-coloured Glass, Stains The White Radiance Of Eternity.

God Is A Hypothesis, And, As Such, Stands In Need Of Proof; The Onus Probandi Rests On The Theist.

Hail To Thee, Blithe Spirit!

Jealousy's Eyes Are Green.

If We Reason, We Would Be Understood; If We Imagine, We Would That The Airy Children Of Our Brain Were Born Anew Within Another's; If We Feel, We Would That Another's Nerves Should Vibrate To Our Own, That The Beams Of Their Eyes Should Kindle At Once And Mix And Melt Into Our Own, That Lips Of Motionless Ice Should Not Reply To Lips Quivering And Burning With The Heart's Best Blood. This Is Love.

The Intense Atom Glows A Moment, Then Is Quenched In A Most Cold Repose.

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.

Man Is Of Soul And Body, Formed For Deeds Of High Resolve; On Fancy's Boldest Wing.

A Lovely Lady, Garmented In Light From Her Own Beauty.

And Bid Them Love Each Other And Be Blest: And Leave The Troop Which Errs, And Which Reproves, And Come And Be My Guest, - For I Am Love's.

Love Each Other

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

I Never Was Attached To That Great Sect, Whose Doctrine Is That Each One Should Select Out Of The Crowd A Mistress Or A Friend, And All The Rest, Though Fair And Wise, Commend, To Cold Oblivion.

Unfathomable Sea! Whose Waves Are Years, Ocean Of Time, Whose Waters Of Deep Woe Are Brackish With The Salt Of Human Tears! Thou Shoreless Flood, Which In Thy Ebb And Flow Claspest The Limits Of Mortality! And Sick Of Prey, Yet Howling On For More, Vomitest Thy Wrecks On Its Inhospitable Shore, Treacherous In Calm, And Terrible In Storm, Who Shall Put Forth On Thee, Unfathomable Sea?

The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

Alas! I Have Nor Hope Nor Health, Nor Peace Within Nor Calm Around, Nor That Content Surpassing Wealth The Sage In Meditation Found.

Sing Again, With Your Dear Voice Revealing. A Tone Of Some World Far From Ours, Where Music And Moonlight And Feeling Are One.

I Pant, I Sink, I Tremble, I Expire!

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.

The Pale Stars Are Gone! For The Sun, Their Swift Shepherd, To Their Folds Them Compelling, In The Depths Of The Dawn, Hastes, In Meteor-eclipsing Array, And The Flee Beyond His Blue Dwelling, As Fawns Flee The Leopard.

The Same Means That Have Supported Every Other Popular Belief Have Supported Christianity. War, Imprisonment, And Falsehood; Deeds Of Unexampled And Incomparable Atrocity Have Made It What It Is.

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.

I Have Been A Wanderer Among Distant Fields. I Have Sailed Down Mighty Rivers.

For Love And Beauty And Delight, There Is No Death Nor Change.

Yes, Marriage Is Hateful, Detestable. A Kind Of Ineffable, Sickening Disgust Seizes My Mind When I Think Of This Most Despotic, Most Unrequited Fetter Which Prejudice Has Forged To Confine Its Energies.

Where Is Perfection? Where I Cannot Reach.

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

The Babe Is At Peace Within The Womb, The Corpse Is At Rest Within The Tomb. We Begin In What We End.

Ah! What A Divine Religion Might Be Found Out If Charity Were Really Made The Principle Of It Instead Of Faith.

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!

Poetry, In A General Sense, May Be Defined To Be 'the Expression Of The Imagination': And Poetry Is Connate With The Origin Of Man.

See The Mountains Kiss High Heaven And The Waves Clasp One Another; No Sister-flower Would Be Forgiven If It Disdained Its Brother; And The Sunlight Clasps The Earth, And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea - What Is All This Sweet Work Worth If Thou Kiss Not Me?

The Beauty Of The Internal Nature Cannot Be So Far Concealed By Its Accidental Vesture, But That The Spirit Of Its Form Shall Communicate Itself To The Very Disguise And Indicate The Shape It Hides From The Manner In Which It Is Worn. A Majestic Form And Graceful Motions Will Express Themselves Through The Most Barbarous And Tasteless Costume.

Majestic Beauty

In A Drama Of The Highest Order There Is Little Food For Censure Or Hatred; It Teaches Rather Self-knowledge And Self-respect.

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.

There Is No Sport In Hate Where All The Rage Is On One Side.

"blessed Are The Pure In Heart, For They Shall See God." Blessed Are Those Who Have Preserved Internal Sanctity Of Soul; Who Are Conscious Of No Secret Deceit; Who Are The Same In Act As They Are In Desire; Who Conceal No Thought, No Tendencies Of Thought, From Their Own Conscience; Who Are Faithful And Sincere Witnesses, Before The Tribunal Of Their Own Judgments, Of All That Passes Within Their Mind. Such As These Shall See God.

(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?

His Fine Wit Makes Such A Wound, The Knife Is Lost In It.

Know What It Is To Be A Child? It Is To Be Something Very Different From The Man Of Today. It Is To Have A Spirit Yet Streaming From The Waters Of Baptism; It Is To Believe In Belief; It Is To Be So Little That Elves Can Reach To Whisper In Your Ear; It Is To Turn Pumpkins Into Coaches, And Mice Into Horses, Lowness Into Loftiness, And Nothing Into Everything, For Each Child Had Its Fairy Godmother In Its Soul.

I See The Waves Upon The Shore, Like Light Dissolved In Star-showers, Thrown.

True Love In This Differs From Gold And Clay, That To Divide Is Not To Take Away. Love Is Like Understanding, That Grows Bright, Gazing On Many Truths; 'tis Like Thy Light, Imagination! Which From Earth And Sky, And From The Depths Of Human Phantasy, As From A Thousand Prisms And Mirrors, Fills The Universe With Glorious Beams, And Kills Error, The Worm, With Many A Sun-like Arrow Of Its Reverberated Lightning.

Image Of Rugged Cliffs And So Thy Thoughts, When Thou Art Gone, Love Itself Shall Slumber On.

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.

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.

The Breath Of Accusation Kills An Innocent Name, And Leaves For Lame Acquittal The Poor Life, Which Is A Mask Without It.

And Spring Arose On The Garden Fair, Like The Spirit Of Love Felt Everywhere; And Each Flower And Herb On Earth's Dark Breast Rose From The Dreams Of Its Wintry Rest.

The Conceptions Which Any Nation Or Individual Entertains Of The God Of Its Popular Worship May Be Inferred From Their Own Actions And Opinions, Which Are The Subjects Of Their Approbation Among Their Fellow-men.

Every Man, In Proportion To His Virtue, Considers Himself, With Respect To The Great Community Of Mankind, As The Steward And Guardian Of Their Interests In The Property Which He Chances To Possess. Every Man, In Proportion To His Wisdom, Sees The Manner In Which It Is His Duty To Employ The Resources Which The Consent Of Mankind Has Intrusted To His Discretion.

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.

Men Must Reap The Things They Sow, Force From Force Must Ever Flow.

Nothing Of Him That Doth Fade But Doth Suffer A Sea-change Into Something Rich And Strange

Christianity Indeed Has Equaled Judaism In The Atrocities, And Exceeded It In The Extent Of Its Desolation. Eleven Millions Of Men, Women, And Children Have Been Killed In Battle, Butchered In Their Sleep, Burned To Death At Public Festivals Of Sacrifice, Poisoned, Tortured, Assassinated, And Pillaged In The Spirit Of The Religion Of Peace, And For The Glory Of The Most Merciful God.

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

All Love Is Sweet Given Or Returned. Common As Light Is Love, And Its Familiar Voice Wearies Not Ever.

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.

In The Infancy Of Society Every Author Is Necessarily A Poet

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.

Those Who Love Not Their Fellow-beings Live Unfruitful Lives, And Prepare For Their Old Age A Miserable Grave.

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.

Titles Are Tinsel, Power A Corrupter, Glorya Bubble, And Excessive Wealth A Libel On Its Possessor.

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

The Desire Of The Moth For The Star, Of The Night For The Morrow, The Devotion To Something Afar From The Sphere Of Our Sorrow.

Love's Pestilence, And Her Slow Dogs Of 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.

Underneath Day's Azure Eyes, Ocean's Nursling, Venice Lies, A Peopled Labyrinth Of Walls, Amphitrite's Destined Halls

Poetry Is A Mirror Which Makes Beautiful That Which Is Distorted.

Words Are But Holy As The Deeds They Cover.

...ere Midnight’s Frown And Morning’s Smile, Ere Thou And Peace May Meet.

What If English Toil And Blood Was Poured Forth, Even As A Flood? It Availed, Oh, Liberty, To Dim, But Not Extinguish Thee.

Worse Than Despair, Worse Than The Bitterness Of Death, Is Hope.

There Is A Harmony In Autumn, And A Luster In Its Sky...

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

Not The Swart Pariah In Some Indian Grove, Lone, Lean, And Hunted By His Brother's Hate, Hath Drunk So Deep The Cup Of Bitter Fate As That Poor Wretch Who Cannot, Cannot Love: He Bears A Load Which Nothing Can Remove, A Killing, Withering Weight.

Truth Has Always Been Found To Promote The Best Interests Of Mankind.

Then Black Despair, The Shadow Of A Starless Night, Was Thrown Over The World In Which I Moved Alone.

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.

Man's Yesterday May Never Be Like His Morrow; Nought May Endure But Mutability.

The Pleasure That Is In Sorrow Is Sweeter Than The Pleasure Of Pleasure Itself.

[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.

O, Wind, If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All That Can Adorn And Bless Art Thou Let Deeds, Not Words, Express Thine Exceeding Loveliness.

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.

Poetry Is The Record Of The Best And Happiest Moments Of The Happiest And Best Minds.

For This Is The Most Civil Sort Of Lie That Can Be Given To A Man's Face. I Now Say What I Think.

Are We Not Formed, As Notes Of Music Are, For One Another, Though Dissimilar?

When The Lamp Is Shattered The Light In The Dust Lies Dead - When The Cloud Is Scattered The Rainbow's Glory Is Shed.

Of Planets, Struggling Fierce Towards Heaven's Free Wilderness.

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.

Like A Glowworm Golden, In A Dell Of Dew, Scattering Unbeholden Its Aerial Blue Among The Flowers And Grass Which Screen It From The View.

Man Has No Right To Kill His Brother. It Is No Excuse That He Does So In Uniform: He Only Adds The Infamy Of Servitude To The Crime Of Murder.

And Many An Ante-natal Tomb Where Butterflies Dream Of The Life To Come.

Joy, Once Lost, Is Pain

What Is Love? It Is That Powerful Attraction Towards All That We Conceive, Or Fear, Or Hope Beyond Ourselves.

Fate,time,occasion,chance, And Change? To These All Things Are Subject But Eternal Love.

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!

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.

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.

Love Withers Under Constraints: Its Very Essence Is Liberty: It Is Compatible Neither With Obedience, Jealousy, Nor Fear.

New Relationship

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.

Nature Rejects The Monarch, Not The Man; The Subject, Not The Citizen... The Man Of Virtuous Soul Commands Not, Nor Obeys.

Gold Is A Living God And Rules In Scorn, All Earthly Things But Virtue.

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.

Vegetarian Diet

...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.

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!

What! Alive, And So Bold, O Earth?

For The Sensitive Plant Has No Bright Flower; Radiance And Odour Are Not Its Dower; It Loves, Even Like Love, Its Deep Heart Is Full, It Desires What It Has Not, The Beautiful.

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Shirley MacLaine

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