A dream has power to poison sleep.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
And priests dare babble of a God of peace, _x000D_ _x000D_ Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, _x000D_ _x000D_ Murdering the while, uprooting every germ _x000D_ _x000D_ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, _x000D_ _x000D_ Making the earth a slaughter - house!
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques the hypocrisy of religious figures who preach peace while committing violence.
Percy Bysshe Shelley highlights the contradiction between the teachings of peace attributed to religious leaders and the reality of their actions, which often involve violence and destruction. He draws attention to the moral incongruence of those who claim to uphold truth and virtue while simultaneously engaging in acts that corrupt and devastate humanity and the earth.
Themes
HypocrisyViolencePeaceReligionTruth
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for genuine morality in leadership.
More from Percy Bysshe Shelley
All quotes →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.
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's ironic that in our culture everyone's biggest complaint is about not having enough time; yet nothing terrifies us more than the thought of eternity.
Dennis MillerRead
It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
Samuel AdamsRead
The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.
Charles DickensRead
The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.
Carl JungRead
The glory of the gospel is this: The one from whom we need to be saved is the one who has saved us.
R. C. SproulRead
World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
Peter UstinovRead