Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.
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Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then - as I am listening now.
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It is probable that what we call thought is not an actual being, but no more than the relation between certain parts of that infinitely varied mass, of which the rest of the universe is composed, and which ceases to exist as soon as those parts change their position with regard to each other.
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Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might.
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First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too.
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He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely.
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All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, It makes the reptile equal to the God; They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now; but those who feel it most Are happier still.
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The breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life, Which is a mask without it.
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And many more Destructions played In this ghastly masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
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A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew, have equal rights: they are men and brethren.
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Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
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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.
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The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!
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Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks which are Weapons of unvanquished war.
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Let there be light! said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!
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From the great morning of the world when first God dawned on Chaos.
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The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
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The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn; Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
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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.
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… 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.
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Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world.
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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?
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The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought.
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The good want power, but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want: worse need for them. The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom; And all best things are thus confused to ill. Many are strong and rich, and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men As if none felt: they know not what they do.