A dream has power to poison sleep.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests it is simpler to believe in an eternal universe than to imagine a creator outside its existence.
Percy Bysshe Shelley highlights a philosophical dilemma regarding the origins of the universe. He implies that the notion of the universe having no beginning, existing for eternity, is easier to accept than the complexity of a creator being that exists outside the universe's parameters. This invites contemplation on the nature of existence and the limits of human understanding in grasping the concept of creation.
Themes
UniverseCreationPhilosophyEternityExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical debate about the existence of God.
More from Percy Bysshe Shelley
All quotes βSenseless is the breast and cold _x000D_ _x000D_ Which relenting love would fold;_x000D_ _x000D_ Bloodless are the veins and chill _x000D_ _x000D_ Which the pulse of pain did fill; _x000D_ _x000D_ Every little living nerve _x000D_ _x000D_ That from bitter words did swerve _x000D_ _x000D_ Round the tortur'd lips and brow, _x000D_ _x000D_ Are like sapless leaflets now _x000D_ _x000D_ Frozen upon December's bough.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
A sensitive plant in a garden grew,_x000D_ _x000D_ And the young winds fed it with silver dew,_x000D_ _x000D_ And it opened its fan_x000D_ _x000D_ like leaves to the light,_x000D_ _x000D_ and closed them beneath the kisses of night.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone. But grief returns with the revolving year.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
Similar quotes
It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
T. S. EliotRead
Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes.
George CarlinRead
2 p.m. beer nothing matters but flopping on a mattress with cheap dreams and a beer as the leaves die and the horses die and the landladies stare in the halls; brisk the music of pulled shades, a last man's cave in an eternity of swarm and explosion; nothing but the dripping sink, the empty bottle, euphoria, youth fenced in, stabbed and shaven, taught words propped up to die.
Charles BukowskiRead
Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them. Trying to preserve a century by keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by stimulants.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
I feel like I could be likened to an old hound circling on a rug for the last five years.
Neil YoungRead