Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, - Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, - mud from a muddy spring, - Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
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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 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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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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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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Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
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The more we study the more we discover our ignorance.
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To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign.
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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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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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… why God made irreconcilable Good and the means of good.
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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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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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Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low?
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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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When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead - When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.
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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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No man has a right to disturb the public peace, by personally resisting the execution of a law however bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same time the utmost powers of his reason, to promote its repeal.
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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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There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearl’d Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
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The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
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It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill. We might be otherwise, we might be all We dream of happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind? and if we were not weak, Should we be less in deed than in desire?
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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.