Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
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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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Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All that can adorn and bless Art thou - let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness.
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I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect.
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I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields; - Reflection, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. - You with the unpaid bill, Despair, - You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, - I will pay you in the grave, - Death will listen to your stave.
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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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There is no God! This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.
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A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.
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Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
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The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.
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Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep- He hath awakened from the dream of life- 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings.
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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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Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low?
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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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Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.
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To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign.
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How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep!
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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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Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep, - that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.
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As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.
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Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.
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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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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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The intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.