Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEYLove withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear.
More Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
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I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!
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Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
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.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.
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A single word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought.
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I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
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.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
I love tranquil solitude And such society As is quiet, wise, and good.
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Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, – but it returneth!
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY -
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.
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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.
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When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindu, his best friends hear no more of him.
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Before man can be free, and equal, and truly wise, he must cast aside the chains of habit and superstition; he must strip sensuality of its pomp, and selfishness of its excuses, and contemplate actions and objects as they really are.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY