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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 2

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The great community of mankind had been subdivided into ten thousand communities, each organized for the ruin of the other.

The great community of mankind had been subdivided into ten thousand communities, each organized for the ruin of the other.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Community, Ruins, Mankind
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1988). “Shelley's Prose: Or the Trumpet of a Prophecy”

The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Imagination, Moral, Instruments
1821 A Defence of Poetry.

I know the cause of all human disappointment -- worldly prejudice.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Disappointment, Prejudice, Causes
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1926). “The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Notes on Shelley's correspondents. Letters, 1803 to 1812”

First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dust, Debt, Firsts
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume”, p.231

In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Atheist, Atheism, Facts
"Selected Essays on Atheism".

Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Heart, Hands, Bloody
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1871). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.300

The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sorrow, Pleasure
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “A defense of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquet”, p.43

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Memories, Men, History
"A Defence of Poetry" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1821.

The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Scylla, Anarchy, Rich
'A Defence of Poetry' (written 1821, published 1840)

There is no real wealth but the labour of man. Were the mountains of gold and the valleys of silver, the world would not be one grain of corn the richer; no one comfort would be added to the human race.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Real, Work, Race

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Blessed are those who have preserved internal sanctity of soul; who are conscious of no secret deceit; who are the same in act as they are in desire; who conceal no thought, no tendencies of thought, from their own conscience; who are faithful and sincere witnesses, before the tribunal of their own judgments, of all that passes within their mind. Such as these shall see God.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Blessed, Heart, Soul
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1972). “Selected Essays on Atheism”, Ayer Company Pub

Sing again, with your dear voice revealing. A tone Of some world far from ours, where music and moonlight and feeling are one.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Music, Voice, Feelings
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.306

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine, In one spirit meet and mingle-Why not I with thine?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Law, Why Not, World
'Love's Philosophy'

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindu, his best friends hear no more of him.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Turns, Dies
Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Letter To Maria Gisborne”

Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Would Be, Empires
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.610, Pearson Education

All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mistake, Self Improvement, Youth
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.172

A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan like leaves to the light, and closed them beneath the kisses of night.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nature, Sunset, Kissing
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.254

Before man can be free, and equal, and truly wise, he must cast aside the chains of habit and superstition; he must strip sensuality of its pomp, and selfishness of its excuses, and contemplate actions and objects as they really are.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wise, Men, Selfishness
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1980). “Shelley on Love: An Anthology”, p.83, Univ of California Press

See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea - What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sweet, Brother, Flower
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2012). “Ode to the West Wind and Other Poems”, p.39, Courier Corporation

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)

When the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven.

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

Fate,Time,Occasion,Chance, and Change? To these All things are subject but eternal love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Time, Fate, Destiny
1820 Prometheus Unbound, act 2, sc.4, l.119-20.

I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wine, Joy, Tonight
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1935). “The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.750, Library of Alexandria

If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Atheist, Religion, Atheism

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

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