A dream has power to poison sleep.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the sacredness of certain words and feelings, suggesting that their value should be respected and not tarnished.
Percy Bysshe Shelley reflects on the weight that certain words and feelings carry in human experience. He suggests that some words, often misused, hold a profundity that should not be diminished, highlighting the idea that genuine emotions and ideas are deserving of reverence and respect in our communication and interactions with others.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of communication, one could use this quote to highlight the power of words.
A dream has power to poison sleep.
Senseless 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.
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.
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.
O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone. But grief returns with the revolving year.
As the gospels present it to us, the mission of Jesus of Nazareth is about the way in which the community of God's people - historically, the Jewish people who had first received the law and the covenant - is being re-created in relation to Jesus himself.
Decisions are made by those who show up. Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world.
The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation.
We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag β¦? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!
No one who has lived even for a fleeting moment for something other than life in its conventional sense and has experienced the exaltation that this feeling produces can then renounce his new freedom so easily.
Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain -- from cosmology to psychology to economics -- has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.