12 quotes
The king ...
like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a king and virtue.
Queen Mab (1813)
Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
Love's very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.
Epipsychidion (1821)
Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.
The Cenci (1819)
Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
Love's Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war.
And bid them love each other and be blest:
And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves,
And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's.
Epipsychidion (1821)
I love Love — though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee —
Thou art love and life! Oh come,
Make once more my heart thy home.
Song: Rarely, Rarely, Comest Thou (1821)
I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
Julian and Maddalo (1819)
Yet all love is sweet
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
* * * * *
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now: but those who feel it most
Are happier still after long sufferings
As I shall soon become.
This is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotism
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
You 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.
Essay on Christianity (1859)