Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
One of the major English romantic poets, widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language; husband of Mary Shelley.
(1792 - 1822)
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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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A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.
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All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who inspire is most are fortunate, As I am now: but those who feel it most Are happier still.
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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.
[Repentance]
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As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
[Criticism]
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Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.
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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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Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.
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Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
[Acts]
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Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
[The Past]
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First our pleasures die - and then Our hopes, and then our fears - and when These are dead, the debt is due, Dust claims dust - and we die too.
[Death]
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Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
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Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
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History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.
[History]
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History is: Fables agreed upon - Voltaire The biography of a few stout and earnest persons - Ralph Waldo Emerson A vast Mississippi of falsehood - Matthew Arnold A confused heap of facts - Lord Chesterfield A cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man -
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How many a rustic Milton has passed by, Stifling the speechless longings of his heart In unremitting drudgery and care! How many a vulgar Cato has compelled His energies, no longer tameless then, To mold a pin, or fabricate a nail!
[Obscurity]
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I consider poetry very subordinate to moral and political science.
[Poetry]
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I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight.
[Joy]
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I know the past, and thence I will essay to glean a warning for the future, so that man may profit by his errors, and derive experience from his folly.
[Experience]
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I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.
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