Quote of the Day (Percy Bysshe Shelley, on Parasites and Power)

“Whence, thinkest thou, kings and parasites arose?

   Whence that unnatural line of drones who heap

   Toil and unvanquishable penury                                    

   On those who build their palaces and bring

   Their daily bread?—From vice, black loathsome vice;

   From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;

   From all that genders misery, and makes

   Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust,

   Revenge, and murder.” —English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Queen Mab (1813), Part III