Percy Bysshe Shelley

“ A Protestant is my brother, and a Catholic is my brother, I am happy when I can do either of them a service, and no pleasure is so great to me than that which I should feel if my advice could make men of any professions of faith, wiser, better and happier.
The Roman Catholics once persecuted the Protestants, the Protestants now persecute the Roman Catholics—should we think that one is as bad as the other? No, you are not answerable for the faults of your fathers any more than the Protestants are good for the goodness of their fathers. I must judge of people as I see them ”

“ Can you conceive, O Irishmen! a happy state of society—conceive men of every way of thinking living together like brothers. The descendant of the greatest Prince would there, be entitled to no more respect than the son of a peasant. There would be no pomp and no parade, but that which the rich now keep to themselves, would then be distributed among the people. None would be in magnificence, but the superfluities then taken from the rich would be sufficient when spread abroad, to make every one comfortable.—No lover would then be false to his mistress, no mistress would desert her lover. ”

“ What fools and tyrants must not those men be, who set up a particular religion, say that this religion alone is right, and that every one who disbelieves it, ought to be deprived of certain rights which are really his, and which would be allowed him if he believed. Certainly, if you cannot help disbelief, it is not any fault in you.—To take away a man's rights and privileges, to call him a heretic or to think worse of him, when at the same time you cannot help owning that he has committed no fault, is the grossest tyranny and intoleration. ”

“ Can we conceive any thing more presumptuous, and at the same time more ridiculous, than a set of men granting a licence to God to receive the prayers of certain of his creatures. Oh Irishmen! I am interested in your cause; and it is not because you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics, that I feel with you and feel for you; but because you are men and sufferers. Were Ireland at this moment, peopled with Brahmins, this very same address would have been suggested by the same state of mind. You have suffered not merely for your religion, but some other causes which I am equally desirous of remedying. ”

“ It is this work which I would earnestly recommend to you, O Irishmen, REFORM YOURSELYES—and I do not recommend it to you particularly because I think that you most need it, but because I think that your hearts are warm and your feelings high, and you will perceive the necessity of doing it more than those of a colder and more distant nature.
I look with an eye of hope and pleasure on the present state of things, gloomy and incapable of improvement as they may appear to others. It delights me to see that men begin to think and to act for the good of others. ”

“ The poor purchase this glory and this wealth, at the expence of their blood, and labor, and happiness, and virtue. They die in battle for this infernal cause. Their labor supplies money and food for carrying it into effect, their happiness is destroyed by the oppression they undergo, their virtue is rooted out by the depravity and vice that prevails throughout the army, and which under the present system, is perfectly unavoidable. ”

“ Believe me, that goodness of heart and purity of life are things of more value in the eye of the Spirit of Goodness, than idle earthly ceremonies, and things which have any thing but charity for their object. And is it for the first or the last of these things that you or the Protestants contend. It is for the last. Prejudiced people indeed, are they who grudge to the happiness and comfort of your souls, things which can do harm to no one. ”

“ But I wish your views to embrace a wider scene, I wish you to think for your children and your children's children; to take great care (for it all rests with you) that whilst one tyranny is destroyed another more fierce and terrible does not spring up. Take care then of smooth-faced impostors, who talk indeed of freedom, but who will cheat you into slavery. Can there be worse slavery than the depending for the safety of your soul on the will of another man? Is one man more favored than another by God. ”

“ Be true to yourselves, and your enemies shall not triumph. I fear nothing, if charity and sobriety mark your proceedings. Every thing is to be dreaded, you yourselves will be unworthy of even a restoration to your rights, if you disgrace the cause, which I hope is that of truth and liberty, by violence, if you refuse to others the toleration which you claim for yourselves.—But this you will not do. ”

“ But how stupid and sottish must those men be, who think that violence and uneasiness of mind have any thing to do with forwarding the views of peace, harmony and happiness. They should know that nothing was so well-fitted to produce slavery, tyranny, and vice, as the violence which is attributed to the friends of liberty, and which the real friends of liberty are the only persons who disdain.—As to your being dissatisfied with your present condition, any thing that I may say is certainly not likely to increase that dissatisfaction. ”

“ The crisis to which I allude as the period of your emancipation, is not the death of the present king, or any circumstance that has to do with kings, but something that is much more likely to do you good: it is the increase of virtue and wisdom which will lead people to find out that force and oppression are wrong and false: and this opinion, when it once gains ground, will prevent government from severity. It will restore those rights which government has taken away. Have nothing to do with force or violence, and things will safely and surely make their way to the right point. ”

“ Let your children lisp of Freedom in the cradle—let your death-bed be the school for fresh exertions—let every street of the city, and field of the country, be connected with thoughts, which liberty has made holy. Be warm in your cause, yet rational, and charitable, and tolerant—never let the oppressor grind you into justifying his conduct by imitating his meanness. ”

“ I wish to impress upon your minds, that without virtue or wisdom, there can be no liberty or happiness; and that temperance, sobriety, charity, and independence of soul, will give you virtue—as thinking, enquiring, reading, and talking, will give you wisdom. Without the first, the last is of little use, and without the last, the first is a dreadful curse to yourselves and others. ”

“ In no case employ violence or falsehood, I cannot too often or too vividly endeavour to impress upon your minds, that these methods will produce nothing but wretchedness and slavery—that they will at the same time rivet the fetters, with which ignorance and oppression bind you to abjectness, and deliver you over to a tyranny, which shall render you incapable of renewed efforts. Violence will immediately render your cause a bad one. If you believe in a Providential God, you must also believe that he is a good one ”

“ Is any one inclined to dispute the possibility of a happy change in society? Do they say that the nature of man is corrupt, and that he was made for misery and wickedness? Be it so. Certain as are opposite conclusions, I will concede the truth of his, for a moment.—What are the means which I take for melioration? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime? Do I do evil, that good may come? ”

“ If you think and read and talk with a real wish of benefiting the cause of truth and liberty, it will soon be seen how true a service you are rendering, and how sincere you are in your professions; but mobs and violence must be discarded. The certain degree of civil and religious liberty which the usage of the English Constitution allows, is such as the worst of men are entitled to, although you have it not; but that liberty which we may one day hope for, wisdom and virtue can alone give you a right to enjoy. ”

“ In no case employ violence, the way to liberty and happiness is never to transgress the rules of virtue and justice. Liberty and happiness are founded upon virtue and justice, if you destroy the one, you destroy the other. However ill others may act, this will be no excuse for you if you follow their example; it ought rather to warn you from pursuing so bad a method. Depend upon it, Irishmen, your cause shall not be neglected. I will fondly hope, that the schemes for your happiness and liberty, as well as those for the happiness and liberty of the world, will not be wholly fruitless. ”

“ One secure method of defeating them is violence on the side of the injured party. If you can descend to use the same weapons as your enemy, you put yourself on a level with him on this score, you must be convinced that he is on these grounds your superior. But appeal to the sacred principles of virtue and justice, then how is he awed into nothing? how does truth show him in his real colours, and place the cause of toleration and reform in the clearest light. I extend my view not only to you as Irishmen, but to all of every persuasion, of every country. ”

“ For it is fit that the governed should enquire into the proceedings of Government, which is of no use the moment it is conducted on any other principle but that of safety. You have much to think of.—Is war necessary to your happiness and safety. The interests of the poor gain nothing from the wealth or extension of a nation's boundaries, they gain nothing from glory, a word that has often served as a cloak to the ambition or avarice of Statesmen. The barren victories of Spain, gained in behalf of a bigotted and tyrannical Government, are nothing to them. ”

“ I think that associations conducted in the spirit of sobriety, regularity, and thought, are one of the best and most efficient of those means which I would recommend for the production of happiness, liberty, and virtue.
Are you slaves, or are you men? if slaves, then crouch to the rod, and lick the feet of your oppressors, glory in your shame, it will become you if brutes to act according to your nature. But you are men, a real man is free, so far as circumstances will permit him. ”

“ Harmony, that among yourselves may be no divisions, that Protestants and Catholics unite in a common interest, and that whatever be the belief and principles of your countryman and fellow-sufferer, you desire to benefit his cause, at the same time that you vindicate your own, be strong and unbiassed by selfishness or prejudice—for Catholics, your religion has not been spotless, crimes in past ages have sullied it with a stain, which let it be your glory to remove. ”

“ Oh, Irishmen ye can. Hidden arms, secret meetings and designs, violently to separate England from Ireland, are all very bad. I do not mean to say the very end of them is bad, the object you have in view may be just enough, whilst the way you go about it is wrong, may be calculated to produce an opposite effect. Never do evil that good may come, always think of others as well as yourself, and cautiously look how your conduct may do good or evil, when you yourself shall be mouldering in the grave. Be fair, open, and you will be terrible to your enemies. ”

“ I think those people then are very silly, and cannot see one inch beyond their noses, who say that human nature is depraved; when at the same time wealth and poverty, those two great sources of crime, fall to the lot of a great majority of people; and when they see that people in moderate circumstances are always most wise and good.—People say that poverty is no evil—they have never felt it, or they would not think so. ”

“ Kings are but too apt to think little as they should do: they think every thing in the world is made for them; when the truth is, that it is only the vices of men that make such people necessary, and they have no other right of being kings, but in virtue of the good they do. The benefit of the governed is the origin and meaning of government. The Prince of Wales has had every opportunity of knowing how he ought to act about Ireland and liberty. ”

“ I am not an Irishman, yet I can feel for you. I hope there are none among you who will read this address with prejudice or levity, because it is made by an Englishman, indeed, I believe there are not. The Irish are a brave nation. They have a heart of liberty in their breasts, but they are much mistaken if they fancy that a stranger cannot have as warm a one. Those are my brothers and my countrymen, who are unfortunate. I should like to know what there is in a man being an Englishman, a Spaniard, or a Frenchman, that makes him worse or better than he really is. ”

“ Is it not as indefinite as the words, contumely, reproach, defamation, that allow at present, such latitude to the outrages that are committed on the free expression of individual sentiment. Can they not see that what is rational will stand by its reason, and what is true stand by its truth, as all that is foolish will fall by its folly, and all that is false be controverted by its own falsehood.—Liberty gains nothing by the reform of politicians of this stamp, any more than it gains from a change of Ministers in London. ”

“ Insincerity is no less hurtful than violence: those who are in the habits of either, would do well to reform themselves. A lying bravo will never promote the good of his country—he cannot be a good man. The courageous and sincere may, at the same time, successfully oppose corruption, by uniting their voice with that of others, or individually raise up intellectual opposition to counteract the abuses of Government and society. ”