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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 11

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I was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there. The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,

I was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there. The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth; The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man Has said, 'There is no God.'

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mother, Atheist, Children
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.429, JHU Press

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”

It is impossible that had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the Bourbons.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Power, Race, Vegetables
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Donald H. Reiman, Neil Fraistat (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.303, JHU Press

Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden, That apparition, sole of men, he saw.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Children, Men, Garden
'Prometheus Unbound' (1819) act 1, l. 191

O! I burn with impatience for the moment of the dissolution of intolerance; it has injured me.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Moments, Intolerance, Impatience
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1912). “The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Containing Material Never Before Collected”

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

The Galilean is not a favorite of mine. So far from owing him any thanks for his favor, I cannot avoid confessing that I owe a secret grudge to his carpentership.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Secret, Owing, Favors
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1988). “Shelley's Prose: Or the Trumpet of a Prophecy”

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joyand fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, Swift be thy flight!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dream, Night, Long
'To Night'

Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Spring, War, Passion
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1832). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley and Keats: Complete in One Volume”, p.361

He hath awakened from the dream of life.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dream, Memorial, Headstone
'Adonais' (1821) st. 39

Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind; The foul cubs like their parents are.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Revenge, Parent, Kind
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.180

The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Stars, Veils, May
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1832). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley and Keats: Complete in One Volume”, p.411

By all that is sacred in our hope for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Race, Vegetarianism, Vegetables
"A Vindication of Natural Diet". Book by Percy Bysshe Shelley, archive.org. 1813.

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Clouds, Snakes, Unbound
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1861). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Complete in One Volume”, p.201

The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within...could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the result; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline; and the most glorious poetry that has been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Inspiration, Greatness, Wind

Narrow The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object, and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for its eternity.

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

Contemporary criticism only represents the amount of ignorance genius has to contend with. . . . Time will reverse the judgement of the vulgar.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ignorance, Judgement, Criticism

The old laws of England they Whose reverend heads with age are gray, Children of a wiser day; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo Liberty!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Children, Echoes, Law
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (1855). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: In Three Volumes”, p.431

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

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Philosophy, Adequate, Causes

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

Necessity, thou mother of the world!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mother, World
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1857). “Queen Mab, a philosophical poem, with notes. To which is added, A brief memoir of the author”, p.50

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Song, Liberty
'The Waning Moon'

Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Pain, Tragedy, Shadow
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2006). “A Defence of Poetry: an Essay: Easyread Large Edition”, p.57, ReadHowYouWant.com

The same means that have supported every other popular belief have supported Christianity. War, imprisonment, and falsehood; deeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity have made it what it is.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Religious, War, Mean
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1821). “Queen Mab, a philosophical poem, with notes. [reputed to have been given by the author to W. Francis. Wanting the title-leaf, dedication and part of the last leaf].”, p.145

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; envy and calumny and hate and pain, and that unrest which men miscall delight, can touch him not and torture not again; from the contagion of the world's slow stain, he is secure.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death, Pain, Hate
'Adonais' (1821) st. 40

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