Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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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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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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Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.
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Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
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Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, - but it returneth!
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Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
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Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All that can adorn and bless Art thou - let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness.
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Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.
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The more we study the more we discover our ignorance.
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He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see, what things they be; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality!
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… why God made irreconcilable Good and the means of good.
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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.
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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.
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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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In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect.
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Rough wind, the moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, - Wail, for the world's wrong!
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Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon - Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night - Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!
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Those who inflict must suffer, for they see The work of their own hearts, and this must be Our chastisement or recompense.
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Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low?
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My father Time is weak and gray With waiting for a better day; See how idiot-like he stands, Fumbling with his palsied hands!
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The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
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Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good. I am a God and cannot find it there, Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
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Me - who am as a nerve o'er which do creep The else unfelt oppressions of this earth, And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth, When all beside was cold: - that thou on me Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony!
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To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign.