Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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Let there be light! said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!
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Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
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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.
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Most musical of mourners, weep again!
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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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Then, what is Life?
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He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.
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Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
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Be your strong and simple words Keen to wound as sharpened swords, And wide as targes let them be, With their shade to cover ye.
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Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude To live alone, an isolated thing?
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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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History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.
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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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Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half the human race to misery.
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I weep for Adonais - he is dead! O, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
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A wild dissolving bliss Over my frame he breathed, approaching near, And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss.
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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.
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Man, who wert once a despot and a slave, A dupe and a deceiver! a decay, A traveller from the cradle to the grave Through the dim night of this immortal day.
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Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
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Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
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There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!
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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.
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Let the blue sky overhead, The green earth on which ye tread, All that must eternal be Witness the solemnity.
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Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number - Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you - Ye are many - they are few.