Percy Bysshe Shelley citáty

strana 5

„Nebojte se budoucnosti, neplačte nad minulostí.“

„Čím víc se učíme, tím víc odhalujeme svoji nevědomost.“

„Nejjistěji lže ten, kdo pravdu pouze zfalšuje a nevymýšlí si úplnou lež; nejlépe je tu a tam ubrat kousek pravdy a nahradit ždibcem nepravdy.“

„Nikdo není opravdu dobře oblečen, nenosí-li na tváři úsměv.“

„Láska se rodí z okouzlení.“

„Někteří lidé dovedou opravovat jen cizí názory, nikoli vlastní.“

„Systém, který vymyslí velký člověk, nemohou hájit malí lidé, i k tomu je potřebí velkého člověka.“

„V manželství se spíše stydíme projevit manželskou lásku duchovní než tělesnou; před manželstvím ovšem naopak.“

„Básníci jsou neuznávání zákonodárci světa.“

„Velké duchovní vlastnosti málokdy dopomohou manželství ke štěstí, protože zřídka kdy zapůsobí. Zato malé pozornosti a zvyklosti a ústupný rozum jsou základem štěstí.“

„Kdo není stále moudřejší, není ani moudrý.“

„Hlava se věčně mění, dobré srdce málokdy.“

„Ženy čtou v cizím srdci lépe než ve vlastním.“

„Vtipnou lichotku snese i ten nejskromnější.“

„Brzy se i kuchařské umění zdokonalí tak, že kuchař, který peče pstruhy, nebude umět usmažit kapra.“

„Některými věcmi se člověk chlubí, aby se za ně nemusel stydět.“

“The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.”

“Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.”

“Hell is a city much like London —
A populous and smoky city.”

“Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.”

“The butchering of harmless animals cannot fail to produce much of that spirit of insane and hideous exultation in which news of a victory is related altho' purchased by the massacre of a hundred thousand men. If the use of animal food be in consequence, subversive to the peace of human society, how unwarrantable is the injustice and barbarity which is exercised toward these miserable victims. They are called into existence by human artifice that they may drag out a short and miserable existence of slavery and disease, that their bodies may be mutilated, their social feelings outraged. It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery.”

“Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?”

“I never thought before my death to see
Youth's vision thus made perfect.”

“Should it be proved… that the mysterious principle which regulates the proceedings of the universe, is neither intelligent nor sensitive, yet it is not an inconsistency to suppose at the same time, that the animating power survives the body which it has animated, by laws as independent of any supernatural agent as those through which it first became united with it. Nor, if a future state be clearly proved, does it follow that it will be a state of punishment or reward.”

“War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.”

“Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy’s bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine
In which its vermeil splendours shine.”

“Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, —
Swift be thy flight!”

“Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.”

“The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.”

“The moon of Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set;
While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon,
The cross leads generations on.”

“Gold is a living god and rules in scorn,
All earthly things but virtue.”

“Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.”

“From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares.”

“The pale stars are gone!
For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and the flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard.”

“Can man be free if woman be a slave?”

“And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.”

“I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.”

“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”

“Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.”

“It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation, that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion; and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.”

“What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o'er the white death — bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy heart heaving without a moan?”

“Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day,
Night followed, clad with stars.”

“It is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill.
We might be otherwise, we might be all
We dream of happy, high, majestical.
Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek,
But in our mind? and if we were not weak,
Should we be less in deed than in desire?”

“To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be
Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign.”

“It doth repent me; words are quick and vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.”