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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 16

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Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Grief, Echoes, Mountain
Percy Bysshe Shelley, G. Cuningham (1856). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: With Notes”, p.348

What is Freedom? ye can tell That which slavery is, too well For its very name has grown To an echo of your own.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Echoes, Names, Slavery
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.233

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mother, Dream, Sweet
1819 'The Cloud'.

Gold is a living god and rules in scorn, All earthly things but virtue.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Gold, Virtue, Scorn
Percy Bysshe Shelley, G. Cuningham (1856). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: With Notes”, p.81

This, and no other, is justice: — to consider, under all the circumstances and consequences of a particular case, how the greatest quantity and purest quality of happiness will ensue from any action ... there is no other justice.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Justice, Quality, Action
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1859). “Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources : Now First Printed”, p.263

In proportion as a man is selfish, so far has he receded from the motive which constitutes virtue.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Selfish, Men, Virtue
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1964). “Letters: Shelley in England”

Thou art Justice ne'er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold As laws are in England thou Shield'st alike the high and low.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Art, Law, Justice
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1842). “The masque of Anarchy, a poem, with a preface by L. Hunt. To which is added, Queen Liberty; Song- To the men of England”, p.18

Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Flow, Force
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.438, Pearson Education

Near that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks, A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books, Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray Of figures,-disentangle them who may.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Block, Lying, Book
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.435, Wordsworth Editions

What if English toil and blood Was poured forth, even as a flood? It availed, Oh, Liberty, To dim, but not extinguish thee.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Blood, What If, Liberty
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1842). “The Masque of Anarchy: To which is Added, Queen Liberty; Song--to the Men of England”, p.18

Our Adonais has drunk poisonoh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Drunk, Crowns, Woe
1821 Adonais, stanza 36.

O cease! must hate and death return, Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hate, Past, Men
'Hellas' (1822) l. 1096

Teas, Where small talk dies in agonies.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Agony, Tea, Small Talk
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.240

Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glorya bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Titles, Wealth, Libel
1812 Declaration of Rights, article 27.

Constancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independently of the pleasure it confers, and partakes of the temporizing spirit of vice in proportion as it endures tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of its indiscreet choice.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Marriage, Choices, Vices
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Top Complete Works Collection”, p.1833, 谷月社

To be omnipotent but friendless is to reign.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Leadership, Society, Reign
'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 2, scene 4, l. 47

Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dream, Rain, Ocean
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1847). “The works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. by mrs. Shelley”, p.259

Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove, Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate, Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: He bears a load which nothing can remove, A killing, withering weight.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love, Brother, Hate
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.216, Delphi Classics

The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that I am one of those who are unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Views, Facts
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.1820, Delphi Classics

Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sea, Needs, Green
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.217

It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower -- and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wise, Spring, Flower
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.10

I love Love -- though he has wings, And like light can flee.

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

The practice of utter sincerity towards other men would avail to no good end, if they were incapable of practising it towards their own minds. In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Practice, Mind
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1859). “Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources : Now First Printed”, p.277

The conceptions which any nation or individual entertains of the God of its popular worship may be inferred from their own actions and opinions, which are the subjects of their approbation among their fellow-men.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Fellow Man, May
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1859). “Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources : Now First Printed”, p.270

Everytime we say that god is the author of some phenomenon, that signifies that we are ignorant of how such a phenomenon was caused by the forces of nature.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ignorant, Force, Forces Of Nature

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