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

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it." by Percy Bysshe Shelley?
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley 246
English Romantic poet 1792–1822

Related quotes

John Dryden photo

“The sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree.”

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), The Secular Masque (1700), Lines 61–62.

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“5698. Who draws his Sword against his Prince, must throw away the Scabbard.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“And Love is like the lightning in its might,
Winging where least bethought its fiery flight,
Melting the blade, despite the scabbard's guard.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea
The Golden Violet (1827)

Thomas Jackson photo

“The time for war has not yet come, but it will come, and that soon; and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute (March 1861); as quoted in Mighty Stonewall (1957) by Frank E. Vandiver, p. 131; this has sometimes been paraphrased as "When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard."

Philip Massinger photo

“Some undone widow sits upon mine arm,
And takes away the use of it; and my sword,
Glued to my scabbard with wronged orphans' tears,
Will not be drawn.”

Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English writer

A New Way to pay Old Debts (1625), Act v. Sc. 1. Compare: "From thousands of our undone widows / One may derive some wit", Thomas Middleton, A Trick to catch the Old One (1605), Act i, Scene 2.

Sei Shonagon photo
Walter Scott photo

“Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord”

Harold the Dauntless (1817), Canto I, st. 4.
Context: Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord;
That which molders hemp and steel,
Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

Laurie Halse Anderson photo

Related topics