"Sonnet: Political GreatnessNor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,History is but the shadow of their shame,Art veils her glass, or from the pageant startsAs to oblivion their blind millions fleet,Staining that Heaven with obscene imageryOf their own likeness. What are numbers knitBy force or custom? Man who man would be,Must rule the empire of himself; in itMust be supreme, establishing his throneOn vanquished will, quelling the anarchyOf hopes and fears, being himself alone."

Politics, Freedom, Discipline, Strength, Individual

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"Sonnet: Political GreatnessNor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,History is but the shadow of their shame,Art veils her glass, or from the pageant startsAs to oblivion their blind millions fleet,Staining that Heaven with obscene imageryOf their own likeness. What are numbers knitBy force or custom? Man who man would be,Must rule the empire of himself; in itMust be supreme, establishing his throneOn vanquished will, quelling the anarchyOf hopes and fears, being himself alone."

Exlpore more Politics quotes

"...vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry."

Thomas Jefferson, American President

Politics, Power, Government, Class, Wealth

"Peace is preferable to war. But it's not an absolute value, and so we always ask, "What kind of peace?"

Noam Chomsky, American Activist

Politics, Peace, War, Values, Question

"I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity."

Christopher Hitchens, American Author

Politics, Defense, Terrorism, Civilization

"Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change."

Muhammad Ali, American Athlete

Politics, Change, Nations, Poverty

"Politics is more dangerous than war for in war you are only killed once."

Winston Churchill, English Statesman

Politics, Danger, War, Power

"The biggest enemy of western people is not war or terrorism, it is their own governments lack of regulation of public health and safety."

Steven Magee, British Author

Politics, Enemy, Health, Government, Safety

"Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button."

Christopher Lasch, American Historian

Politics, Conservatism, Denial, Ideology, Smile

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."

Richard M. Nixon, American President

Politics, Gentlemen, Nixon, Press

"Good riddance to the blatantly corrupt Democratic Party!"

Steven Magee, British Author

Politics, Corruption, Opinion, Government

"You can become a politician and improve the institutions of power in your country."

Sunday Adelaja, Nigerian Author

Politics, Improvement, Country, Leadership

Explore more quotes by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth."

Mistake, Mistakes, Worth, Youth

"Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it."

Poetry,

"We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,The path of its departure still is free.Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability!"

Impermanence, Change, Life, Joy

"In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect."

Food, Censure, Drama, Hatred

"I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity."

Nature, Arguments, Infinity, Intellect

"O weep for Adonis - He is dead.' 'Peace. He is not dead he doth not sleep - he hath wakened from the dream of life."

Myth, Life, Death, Observation, Dream

"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."

Soul, Lovers

"Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself."

Tragedy, Sorrow, Pleasure, Emotion

"And in a mad tranceStrike with our spirit's knifeInvulnerable nothingsWe decayLike corpses in a charnelFear & GriefConvulse is & consume usDay by dayAnd cold hopes swarmLike worms withinOur living clay."

Despair, Horror, Fear, Decay, Grief

"I have sent books and music there, and all / Those instruments with which high spirits call / The future from its cradle, and the past / Out of its grave, and make the present last / In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, / Folded within their own eternity."

Eternity, Books, Music, Memory, Time