QuoteProject
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

War is influenced by various professions and interests, highlighting the complexities of human conflicts.

This quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley explores the multifaceted nature of war, suggesting that it involves not only statesmen who strategize and make decisions, but also has implications for religious leaders, legal professionals, and those who profit from violence. It illustrates how war is intertwined with human ambition and serves different purposes for different people, often leading to moral dilemmas and societal consequences.

Themes

WarPoliticsConflictHuman NatureMorality

In practice

Example use cases

During a speech on the complexities of conflict, one might say, 'As Percy Bysshe Shelley noted, war is not just a matter of military strategy but involves various societal roles.'

More from Percy Bysshe Shelley

A dream has power to poison sleep.
Percy Bysshe ShelleyRead
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

If God is to create or to preserve a creature, God must be present and must make and preserve God's creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.
Martin LutherRead
Jetsetting is now not the privilege of the elite so much as a veritiginous mundanity for a permanently dispossessed global workforce.
Mark FisherRead
One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.
Sidonie Gabrielle ColetteRead
I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for people.
Katharine HepburnRead
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
Thomas AquinasRead
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.
Umberto EcoRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley | QuoteProject