Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
If all the thought which had been expended on the construction of engines of agony and death - the modes of aggression and defence, the raising of armies, and the acquirement of those arts of tyranny and falsehood without which mixed multitudes could neither be led nor governed - had been employed to promote the true welfare and extend the real empire of man, how different would have been the present situation of human society!
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "A Defence of Poetry." Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, edited by Mary W. Shelley, vol. 1, Edward Moxon, 1840, p. 46.
She had gone to Europe where the 2nd World War was raging.
While it is true that thus far in human history war has been the only way, that does not necessarily mean that that is the only way. The establishment of free trade used to be only accomplished by force or arms or fear of such, but in modern times, common markets and trading zones are being created for economic and domestic desires for economic development. Even most non democratic countries have wanted to create a larger market for its goods and services and have joined larger organizations irrespective of military defeat and its fear. See {553984} for perspective and hope relating to this quotation.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Browning, Swinburne, Hardy and Yeats.
