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Percy Bysshe Shelley
212 quotes
“Most musical of mourners, weep again!”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He died, Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, Blind, old, and lonely.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To that high Capital, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And others came... Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, Splendours, and GloOms, and glimmering Incarnations Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, Came in slow pomp; — the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From the great morning of the world when first God dawned on Chaos.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — A Love in desolation masked; — a Power Girt round with weakness; — it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, A breaking billow; — even whilst we speak Is it not broken? On the withering flower The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What softer voice is hushed over the dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown? What form leans sadly o'er the white death — bed, In mockery of monumental stone, The heavy heart heaving without a moan?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now - Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep— He hath awakened from the dream of life— 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is made one with Nature: there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day 'Tis since thou are fled away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise, and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love Love — though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee — Thou art love and life! Oh come, Make once more my heart thy home.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. His auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Best and brightest, come away!”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And like a prophetess of May Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs — To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields; — Reflection, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. — You with the unpaid bill, Despair, — You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, — I will pay you in the grave, — Death will listen to your stave.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... they who wore Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, Signs of thought's empire over thought —their lore Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might Could not repress the mystery within.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... why God made irreconcilable Good and the means of good.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then, what is Life?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The butchering of harmless animals cannot fail to produce much of that spirit of insane and hideous exultation in which news of a victory is related altho' purchased by the massacre of a hundred thousand men. If the use of animal food be in consequence, subversive to the peace of human society, how unwarrantable is the injustice and barbarity which is exercised toward these miserable victims. They are called into existence by human artifice that they may drag out a short and miserable existence of slavery and disease, that their bodies may be mutilated, their social feelings outraged. It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1815 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Vegetable System of Diet" (c. 1815; published in the 1920s), in Complete Works, ed. Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck, Volume 6 (New York: Gordian Press, 1965), pp. 343-344, original emphasis
“If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced? If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common observer is struck with dejection of the spectacle. He contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear; whose touch met his like sweet and subtle fire: whose aspect spread a visionary light upon his path — these he cannot meet again.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness! Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all The wanton horrors of her bloody play; Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless, Shunning the light, and owning not its name, Compelled by its deformity to screen With flimsy veil of justice and of right Its unattractive lineaments that scare All save the brood of ignorance; at once The cause and the effect of tyranny; Unblushing, hardened, sensual and vile; Dead to all love but of its abjectness; With heart impassive by more noble powers Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame; Despising its own miserable being, Which still it longs, yet fears, to disenthrall.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been the persuasion of an immense majority of human beings in all ages and nations that we continue to live after death,—that apparent termination of all the functions of sensitive and intellectual existence. Nor has mankind been contented with supposing that species of existence which some philosophers have asserted; namely, the resolution of the component parts of the mechanism of a living being into its elements, and the impossibility of the minutest particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution. They have clung to the idea that sensibility and thought, which they have distinguished from the objects of it, under the several names of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature, less susceptible of division and decay, and that, when the body is resolved into its elements, the principle which animated it will remain perpetual and unchanged.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The natural philosopher, in addition to the sensations common to all men inspired by the event of death, believes that he sees with more certainty that it is attended with the annihilation of sentiment and thought. He observes the mental powers increase and fade with those of the body, and even accommodate themselves to the most transitory changes of our physical nature. Sleep suspends many of the faculties of the vital and intellectual principle; drunkenness and disease will either temporarily or permanently derange them. Madness or idiotcy may utterly extinguish the most excellent and delicate of those powers. In old age the mind gradually withers; and as it grew and was strengthened with the body, so does it together with the body sink into decrepitude. Assuredly these are convincing evidences that so soon as the organs of the body are subjected to the laws of inanimate matter, sensation, and perception, and apprehension are at an end.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: — Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mind from its object differs most in this: Evil from good; misery from happiness; The baser from the nobler; the impure And frail, from what is clear and must endure. If you divide suffering and dross, you may Diminish till it is consumed away; If you divide pleasure and love and thought, Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not How much, while any yet remains unshared, Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared: This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law By which those live, to whom this world of life Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife Tills for the promise of a later birth The wilderness of this Elysian earth.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source