"In proportion as a man is selfish, so far has he receded from the motive which constitutes virtue."
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Percy Bysshe Shelley quotes (page 18 of 22)
437 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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?"
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"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."
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"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."
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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."
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"The encomium of one incapable of flattery is indeed flattering."
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"There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side."
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"I love all waste and solitary places."
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"We know not what we do When we speak words."
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"Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; the subject, not the citizen... The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys."
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"Image of rugged cliffs And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on."
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"... Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time."
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"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."
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"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?"
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"Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind."
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"[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."
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"The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose."
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"The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set; While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon, The cross leads generations on."
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"Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
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"What! alive, and so bold, O earth?"
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