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 ShelleyO weep for Adonis - He is dead." "Peace. He is not dead he doth not sleep - he hath wakened from the dream of life
Percy Bysshe ShelleyThe advocates of literal interpretation have been the most efficacious enemies of those doctrines whose nature they profess to venerate.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyWe 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.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyIf 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!
Percy Bysshe Shelley