Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 9

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Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Revenge, Idols, Age

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

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It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Philosophy, Adequate, Causes

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We live and move and think; but we are not the creators of our own origin and existence. We are not the arbiters of every motion of our own complicated nature; we are not the masters of our own imaginations and moods of mental being.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Moving, Thinking, Imagination

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.5, Pearson Education

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As belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Passion, Mind, Atheism

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.26

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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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For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; Radiance and odour are not its dower; It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, It desires what it has not, the beautiful.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Beautiful, Flower, Heart

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. by mrs. Shelley”, p.254

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But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea Of thought and its eternity; Her citizens, imperial spirits, Rule the present from the past, On all this world of men inherits Their seal is set.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

War, Past, Men

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume”

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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

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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

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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

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Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes To multiply your lovely selves?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Eye, Thinking, Self

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1861). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Complete in One Volume”, p.231

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All love is sweet, given or received.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sweet, Love Is, Given

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Like a glowworm golden, in a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden its aerial blue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Flower, Blue, Views

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1901). “The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”

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If we reason, we would be understood; if we imagine, we would that the airy children of our brain were born anew within another's; if we feel, we would that another's nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own, that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips quivering and burning with the heart's best blood. This is Love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Love, Children, Eye

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”

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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

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Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay you low?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Men, England, Lord

'Song to the Men of England'

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Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rivers, Rolling, Decay

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1853). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.317

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Death will come when thou art dead, soon, too soon.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Death, Art

'To Night'

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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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Stars, Night, Sorrow

"To - : One word is too often profaned" l. 13 (1824)

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Be your strong and simple words Keen to wound as sharpened swords, And wide as targes let them be, With their shade to cover ye.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Strong, Simple, Shade

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.234

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Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, the signet of its all-enslaving power, upon a shining ore, and called it gold: before whose image bow the vulgar great, the vainly rich, the miserable proud, the mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, and with blind feelings reverence the power that grinds them to the dust of misery.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Kings, Power, Dust

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.10

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Jesus Christ represented God as the principle of all good, the source of all happiness, the wise and benevolent Creator and Preserver of all living things. But the interpreters of his doctrines have confounded the good and the evil principle.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wise, Jesus, Evil

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1880). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose, Now First Brought Together with Many Pieces Not Before Published”

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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

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Night, Blue, Years

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1830). “The Beauties of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Consisting of Miscellaneous Selections from His Poetical Works. The Entire Poems of Adonais and Alastor, and a Revised Edition of Queen Mab, Free from All the Objectionable Passages. With a Biographical Preface”, p.214

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Whatever strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the imagination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Strength, Imagination, Add

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1852). “Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments”, p.36

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Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sister, Selfishness, Twins

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Donald H. Reiman, Neil Fraistat (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.198, JHU Press

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Born: August 4, 1792
Died: July 8, 1822
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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