Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes About Poetry

Quotes about: Poetry

• Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Beauty, Poetry, World

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.52, Wordsworth Editions

• Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Beautiful, Mirrors, Poetry

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1840). “A defence of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquet”, p.33

• A story of particular facts is a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which it distorts.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Beautiful, Mirrors, Poetry

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1840). “A defence of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquet”, p.33

• All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Poetry, Firsts, Acorns

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1852). “A defence of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquet”, p.35

• Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Life, Poetry, World

  A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

• Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Writing, Poetry, Mind

  'A Defence of Poetry' (written 1821, published 1840)

• Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
  Stains the white radiance of eternity.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Inspirational, Life, Time

  'Adonais' (1821) st. 52

• Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be 'the expression of the imagination': and poetry is connate with the origin of man.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Men, Expression, Imagination

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2006). “A Defence of Poetry: an Essay: Easyread Large Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

• I consider poetry very subordinate to moral and political science.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Poetry, Political, Moral

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “Journal of a six weeks' tour. Letters from Geneva. Journal at Geneva: ghost stories, Journal: return to England. Letters from Italy”, p.129

• Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Moving, Inspiration, Writing

  A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

• Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Song, Learning, Men

  'Julian and Maddalo' (1818) l. 544

• A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Sweet, Cheer, Men

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.1908, Delphi Classics

• A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Men, Poetry, Virtue

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2006). “A Defence of Poetry: an Essay: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.48, ReadHowYouWant.com

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