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.
We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece.
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odors, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.
A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew, have equal rights: they are men and brethren.
O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb.
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.
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.
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!
A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men.
It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things.
The crime of inquiry is one which religion never has forgiven.
As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy.
Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude To live alone, an isolated thing?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.
The breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life, Which is a mask without it.
Let there be light! Said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!
You would not easily guess All the modes of distress Which torture the tenants of earth; And the various evils, Which like so many devils, Attend the poor souls from their birth.
Less oft peace in Shelley’s mind, Than calm in waters seen.
Whence are we, and why are we? Of what scene The actors or spectators?