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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 14

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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.

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

O weep for Adonis - He is dead." "Peace. He is not dead he doth not sleep - he hath wakened from the dream of life

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death, Dream, Sleep

Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and the redeemer, Time.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Forgiveness, Dust, Blood
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.45

Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets food is love and fame.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Food, Light, Air
'Good Night'

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Change, Mother, Daughter
'The Cloud' (1819)

Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; the subject, not the citizen... The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Command Not, Soul
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.386, JHU Press

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love, Sweet, Art
'To-: Music when soft voices die' (published 1824).

The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Kissing, Romantic Love, Sea
Percy Bysshe Shelley, James Russell Lowell, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1871). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.55

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

I Fall upon the thorns of life.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fall, Thorns
"Ode to the West Wind" l. 53 (1819)

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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Believe, Destiny, Men
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.207, Wordsworth Editions

O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb

Percy Bysshe Shelley
World, Lasts, Steps
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nora Crook, Timothy Webb, Bodleian Library (1997). “The Faust Draft Notebook: A Facsimile of Bodleian MS. Shelley Adds. E. 18 : Including Drafts of Scenes from the Faust of Goethe, Ginevra, Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso of Calderon, Fragments of an Unfinished Drama, Lines--When the Lamp is Shattered, From the Arabic, A Lament (O World! O Life! O Time), With a Guitar, to Jane, and Miscellaneous Fragments of Verse and Prose”, p.310, Taylor & Francis

Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.

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

Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Simplicity, Innocence, Knows

I love Love - though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee - Thou art love and life! Oh come, Make once more my heart thy home.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Art, Home
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.294

And bid them love each other and be blest: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, - for I am Love's.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Guests, Love Each Other
Percy Bysshe Shelley, G. Cuningham (1860). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: With Notes”, p.344

Lie bills and calculations much perplexed, With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lying, Blue, Yellow
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.665, Modern Library

Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Wise, Spring
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (1855). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: In Three Volumes”, p.441

Had this author [Sir W Drummond Academical Questions, chap. iii.], instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would have, been more suited to the modesty of the skeptic and the toleration of the philosopher.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Guilt, Atheism, Modesty
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “The Necessity of Atheism”, p.12, Booklassic

To hope till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hope, Wrecks, Unbound
'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 4, l. 570

Whatever may be his true and final destination, there is a spirit within him at enmity with nothingness and dissolution. This is the character of all life and being.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Character, Being Positive, Atheism
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.1820, Delphi Classics

I am convinced that there can be no regeneration of mankind until laughter is put down.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Laughter, Mankind, Regeneration
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2012). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.470, JHU Press

Cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hope, Clay, Cold
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1853). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.575

The flood of time is rolling on; We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream. Have ye done well?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Time, Rolling, Gone
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.94

My father Time is weak and gray With waiting for a better day; See how idiot-like he stands, Fumbling with his palsied hands!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Time, Father, Hands
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2012). “Ode to the West Wind and Other Poems”, p.43, Courier Corporation

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