Background Image

...

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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Thou Demandest What Is

Percy Bysshe Shelley

...

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.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

No One Has Yet Been Found Resolute Enough In Dogmatizing To Deny That Nature Made Man Equal; That Society Has Destroyed This Equality Is A Truth Not More Incontrovertible.

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

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

Chameleons Feed On Light And Air: Poets Food Is Love And Fame.

Mild Is The Slow Necessity Of Death; The Tranquil Spirit Fails Beneath Its Grasp, Without A Groan, Almost Without A Fear, Resigned In Peace To The Necessity; Calm As A Voyager To Some Distant Land, And Full Of Wonder, Full Of Hope As He.

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

Necessity, Thou Mother Of The World!

"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.

There Is No Real Wealth But The Labour Of Man.

All Things Are Sold: The Very Light Of Heaven Is Venal; Earth's Unsparing Gifts Of Love, The Smallest And Most Despicable Things That Lurk In The Abysses Of The Deep, All Objects Of Our Life, Even Life Itself, And The Poor Pittance Which The Laws Allow Of Liberty, The Fellowship Of Man, Those Duties Which His Heart Of Human Love Should Urge Him To Perform Instinctively, Are Bought And Sold As In A Public Mart Of Not Disguising Selfishness, That Sets On Each Its Price, The Stamp-mark Of Her Reign.

My Name Is Ozymandias, King Of Kings: Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!

Love's Pestilence, And Her Slow Dogs Of War.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Pard-like Spirit, Beautiful And Swift.

Better Than All Measures Of Delightful Sound, Better Than All Treasures That In Books Are Found, Thy Skill To Poet Were, Thou Scorner Of The Ground!

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

When The Power Of Imparting Joy Is Equal To The Will, The Human Soul Requires No Other Heaven.

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.

The Crime Of Inquiry Is One Which Religion Never Has Forgiven.

Nought May Endure But Mutability.

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.

It Is True That The Reluctance To Abstain From Animal Food, In Those Who Have Been Long Accustomed To Its Stimulus, Is So Great In Some Persons Of Weak Minds, As To Be Scarcely Overcome; But This Is Far From Bringing Any Argument In Its Favour

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.

Our Adonais Has Drunk Poisonoh! What Deaf And Viperous Murderer Could Crown Life's Early Cup With Such A Draught Of Woe?

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.

A God Made By Man Undoubtedly Has Need Of Man To Make Himself Known To Man.

The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

Dar'st Thou Amid The Varied Multitude To Live Alone, An Isolated Thing?

The Great Secret Of Morals Is Love; Or A Going Out Of Our Nature, And An Identification Of Ourselves With The Beautiful Which Exists In Thought, Action, Or Person, Not Our Own. A Man, To Be Greatly Good, Must Imagine Intensely And Comprehensively; He Must Put Himself In The Place Of Another And Of Many Others; The Pains And Pleasure Of His Species Must Become His Own. The Great Instrument Of Moral Good Is The Imagination.

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.

When A Man Marries, Dies, Or Turns Hindu, His Best Friends Hear No More Of Him.

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!

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.

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.

The Young Moon Has Fed Her Exhausted Horn With The Sunset's Fire.

A Dream Has Power To Poison Sleep.

Through The Sunset Of Hope, Like The Shapes Of A Dream, What Paradise Islands Of Glory Gleam!

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy, And I Will Taste No Other Wine Tonight.

Commerce Has Set The Mark Of Selfishness, The Signet Of Its All-enslaving Power, Upon A Shining Ore, And Called It Gold: Before Whose Image Bow The Vulgar Great, The Vainly Rich, The Miserable Proud, The Mob Of Peasants, Nobles, Priests, And Kings, And With Blind Feelings Reverence The Power That Grinds Them To The Dust Of Misery.

Strange Thoughts Beget Strange Deeds.

Until The Mind Can Love, And Admire, And Trust, And Hope, And Endure, Reasoned Principles Of Moral Conduct Are Seeds Cast Upon The Highway Of Life Which The Unconscious Passenger Tramples Into Dust.

The Encomium Of One Incapable Of Flattery Is Indeed Flattering.

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.

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

In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.

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.

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.

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.

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

Peter Was Dull; He Was At First Dull; - Oh, So Dull - So Very Dull! Whether He Talked, Wrote, Or Rehearsed - Still With His Dulness Was He Cursed - Dull -beyond All Conception - Dull.

February... Bending From Heaven, In Azure Mirth, It Kissed The Forehead Of The Earth, And Smiled Upon The Silent Sea, And Bade The Frozen Streams Be Free, And Waked To Music All Their Fountains, And Breathed Upon The Frozen Mountains.

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. . . .

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

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

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

Whatever Strengthens And Purifies The Affections, Enlarges The Imagination, And Adds Spirit To Sense, Is Useful.

All Love Is Sweet, Given Or Received.

The Howl Of Self-interest Is Loud ... But The Heart Is Black Which Throbs Solely To Its Note.

Can Man Be Free If Woman Be A Slave?

It Is Not A Merit To Tolerate, But Rather A Crime To Be Intolerant.

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.

Obedience Indeed Is Only The Pitiful And Cowardly Egotism Of Him Who Thinks That He Can Do Something Better Than Reason.

Concerning God, Freewill And Destiny: Of All That Earth Has Been Or Yet May Be, All That Vain Men Imagine Or Believe, Or Hope Can Paint Or Suffering May Achieve, We Descanted.

Man Who Man Would Be, Must Rule The Empire Of Himself.

Rough Wind, The Moanest Loud Grief Too Sad For Song; Wild Wind, When Sullen Cloud Knells All The Night Long; Sad Storm, Whose Tears Are Vain, Bare Woods, Whose Branches Strain, Deep Caves And Dreary Main, Wail, For The World's Wrong!

There Are Two Italies.... The One Is The Most Sublime And Lovely Contemplation That Can Be Conceived By The Imagination Of Man; The Other Is The Most Degraded, Disgusting, And Odious. What Do You Think? Young Women Of Rank Actually Eat - You Will Never Guess What - Garlick! Our Poor Friend Lord Byron Is Quite Corrupted By Living Among These People, And In Fact, Is Going On In A Way Not Worthy Of Him.

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

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!

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.

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

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

I Am Gone Into The Fields To Take What This Sweet Hour Yields; Reflection, You May Come To-morrow, Sit By The Fireside With Sorrow. You With The Unpaid Bill, Despair, You, Tiresome Verse-reciter, Care, I Will Pay You In The Grave, Death Will Listen To Your Stave.

In The Infancy Of Society Every Author Is Necessarily A Poet

That Orbed Maiden, With White Fire Laden, Whom Mortals Call The Moon.

For There Are Deeds Which Have No Form, Sufferings Which Have No Tongue.

Words Are But Holy As The Deeds They Cover.

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.

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

Drive My Dead Thoughts Over The Universe Like Withered Leaves To Quicken A New Birth! And, By The Incantation Of This Verse, Scatter, As From An Unextinguished Hearth Ashes And Sparks, My Words Among Mankind! Be Through My Lips To Unawakened Earth The Trumpet Of A Prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

Cold Hopes Swarm Like Worms Within Our Living Clay.

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.

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

It Is Vain Philosophy That Supposes More Causes Than Are Exactly Adequate To Explain The Phenomena Of Things.

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.

Let There Be Light! Said Liberty , And Like Sunrise From The Sea, Athens Arose!

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.

Only Nature Knows How To Justly Proportion To The Fault The Punishment It Deserves.

Man, Who Wert Once A Despot And A Slave, A Dupe And A Deceiver! A Decay, A Traveller From The Cradle To The Grave Through The Dim Night Of This Immortal Day.

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places; Where We Taste The Pleasure Of Believing What We See Is Boundless, As We Wish Our Souls To Be.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I Love Tranquil Solitude.

The Great Secret Of Morals Is Love; Or A Going Out Of Our Own Nature, And An Identification Of Ourselves With The Beautiful Which Exists In Thought, Action, Or Person, Not Our Own.

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.

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

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

Poets Are The Unacknowledged Legislators Of The World.

This Lake Exceeds Anything I Ever Beheld In Beauty.

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

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

I Wish No Living Thing To Suffer Pain.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Lost Echo Sits Amid The Voiceless Mountains, And Feeds Her Grief.

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

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.

I Love Snow, Snow, And All The Forms Of Radiant Frost.

O Weep For Adonis - He Is Dead." "peace. He Is Not Dead He Doth Not Sleep - He Hath Wakened From The Dream Of Life

That Sweet Sleep Which Medicines All Pain.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

Peace Is In The Grave.

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

The Practice Of Utter Sincerity Towards Other Men Would Avail To No Good End, If They Were Incapable Of Practising It Towards Their Own Minds. In Fact, Truth Cannot Be Communicated Until It Is Perceived.

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

Self Improvement

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.

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!

Poet's Food Is Love And Fame.

Peace Is In The Grave. The Grave Hides All Things Beautiful And Good. I Am A God And Cannot Find It There, Nor Would I Seek It; For, Though Dread Revenge, This Is Defeat, Fierce King, Not Victory.

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.

To Hope Till Hope Creates From Its Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates.

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!

A Christian, A Deist, A Turk, And A Jew, Have Equal Rights: They Are Men And Brethren.

No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together.

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

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, Though It Is In The Code Of Modern Morals, And The Beaten Road Which Those Poor Slaves With Weary Footsteps Tread, Who Travel To Their Home Among The Dead By The Broad Highway Of The World, And So With One Chained Friend Perhaps A Jealous Foe, The Dreariest And The Longest Journey Go.

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.

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.

It Were As Wise To Cast A Violet Into A Crucible That You Might Discover The Formal Principle Of Its Color And Odor, As Seek To Transfuse From One Language Into Another The Creations Of A Poet. The Plant Must Spring Again From Its Seed, Or It Will Bear No Flower -- And This Is The Burthen Of The Curse Of Babel.

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!

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?

Whence Are We, And Why Are We? Of What Scene The Actors Or Spectators?

Spirit Of Beauty, That Dost Consecrate With Thine Own Hues All Thou Dost Shine Upon Of Human Thought Or Form, Where Art Thou Gone? Why Dost Thou Pass Away And Leave Our State, This Dim Vast Vale Of Tears, Vacant And Desolate? Ask Why The Sunlight Not For Ever Weaves Rainbows O'er Yon Mountain-river, Why Aught Should Fail And Fade That Once Is Shown, Why Fear And Dream And Death And Birth Cast On The Daylight Of This Earth Such Gloom, Why Man Has Such A Scope For Love And Hate, Despondency And Hope?

One Nightingale In An Interfluous Wood Satiate The Hungry Dark With Melody.

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

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

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.

I Love All Waste And Solitary Places.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 To The Dust! But The Pure Spirit Shall Flow Back To The Burning Fountain Whence It Came, A Portion Of The Eternal.

Kings Are Like Stars,-they Rise And Set, They Have The Worship Of The World, But No Repose.

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.

Less Oft Peace In Shelley's Mind, Than Calm In Waters Seen.

If He Is Infinitely Good, What Reason Should We Have To Fear Him? If He Is Infinitely Wise, What Doubts Should We Have Concerning Our Future? If He Knows All, Why Warn Him Of Our Needs And Fatigue Him With Our Prayers? If He Is Everywhere, Why Erect Temples To Him? If He Is Just, Why Fear That He Will Punish The Creatures That He Has Filled With Weaknesses?

Sometimes The Devil Is A Gentleman.

I Have Drunken Deep Of Joy.

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

Deep Truth Is Imageless.

It Is Easier To Suppose That The Universe Has Existed For All Eternity Than To Conceive A Being Beyond Its Limits Capable Of Creating It.

Reason Respects The Differences, And Imagination The Similitudes Of Things.

Jealousy's Eyes Are Green.

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.

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.

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.

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 Its Own Wreck The Thing It Contemplates; Neither To Change, Nor 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.

To Be Omnipotent But Friendless Is To Reign.

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

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

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

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

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

God Is Represented As Infinite, Eternal, Incomprehensible; He Is Contained Under Every Predicate In Non That The Logic Of Ignorance Could Fabricate.

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.

This, And No Other, Is Justice: To Consider, Under All The Circumstances And Consequences Of A Particular Case, How The Greatest Quantity And Purest Quality Of Happiness Will Ensue From Any Action ... There Is No Other Justice.

What Do You Think? Young Women Of Rank Eat - You Will Never Guess What - Garlick!

All Spirits Are Enslaved Which Serve Things Evil

Positive Atheism

And Priests Dare Babble Of A God Of Peace, Even Whilst Their Hands Are Red With Guiltless Blood, Murdering The While, Uprooting Every Germ Of Truth, Exterminating, Spoiling All, Making The Earth A Slaughter - House!

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.

Sometimes It's Better To Put Love Into Hugs Than To Put It Into Words. Soul Meets Soul On Lovers' Lips.

I Consider Poetry Very Subordinate To Moral And Political Science.

Men Of England, Wherefore Plough For The Lords Who Lay You Low?

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.

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

Rise Like Lions After Slumber In Unvanquishable Number- Shake Your Chains To Earth Like Dew Which In Sleep Had Fallen On You Ye Are Many-they Are Few.

It Is Thus That The Generality Of Mankind, Whose Lot Is Ignorance, Attributes To The Divinity, Not Only The Unusual Effects Which Strike Them, But Moreover The Most Simple Events, Of Which The Causes Are The Most Simple To Understand By Whomever Is Able To Study Them. In A Word, Man Has Always Respected Unknown Causes, Surprising Effects That His Ignorance Kept Him From Unraveling. It Was On This Debris Of Nature That Man Raised The Imaginary Colossus Of The Divinity.

The Everlasting Universe Of Things Flows Through The Mind, And Rolls Its Rapid Waves, Now Dark--now Glittering--now Reflecting Gloom-- Now Lending Splendour, Where From Secret Springs The Source Of Human Thought Its Tribute Brings.

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

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

Trending Author

Karen Armstrong

William Tecumseh Sherman

Category