Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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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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Let the blue sky overhead, The green earth on which ye tread, All that must eternal be Witness the solemnity.
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If a person's religious ideas correspond not with your own, love him nevertheless. How different would yours have been, had the chance of birth placed you in Tartary or India!
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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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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.
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Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.
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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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Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.
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How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep!
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The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.
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Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
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Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold As laws are in England - thou Shield'st alike the high and low.
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As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy.
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GOVERNMENT has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.
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All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.
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Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.
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Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
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Sun-girt City, thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey.
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I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect.
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Concerning God, freewill and destiny: Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted.
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O lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast: O press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last!
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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.
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Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven, Although on earth ’tis planted, Where its honours blow, While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven Which die the while they glow.
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Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o’er the disentangled doom.