All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyI was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there. The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth; The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man Has said, 'There is no God.'
Percy Bysshe ShelleyJanuary 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.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyNothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine, In one spirit meet and mingle-Why not I with thine?
Percy Bysshe ShelleyYou ought to love all mankind; nay, every individual of mankind. You ought not to love the individuals of your domestic circles less, but to love those who exist beyond it more. Once make the feelings of confidence and of affection universal, and the distinctions of property and power will vanish; nor are they to be abolished without substituting something equivalent in mischief to them, until all mankind shall acknowledge an entire community of rights.
Percy Bysshe Shelley