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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 5

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It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable

It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sight, Vegetarian Diet, Vegetarianism
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1839). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.86

Thou demandest what is love? It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves, when we find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all things that are, a community with what we experience within ourselves.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love, Powerful, Community
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.1817, Delphi Classics

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Miracle, World, Admiration
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1845). “Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments”, p.55

Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be 'the expression of the imagination': and poetry is connate with the origin of man.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Expression, Imagination
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2006). “A Defence of Poetry: an Essay: Easyread Large Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

All love is sweet Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Love, Life, Sweet
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.114

I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Believe, Soul, Wish
'Julian and Maddalo' (1818) l. 14

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead - When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lying, Clouds, Light
'Lines: When the lamp'

Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man ought not to be considered worse or better for his belief.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Belief, Involuntary
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.559, Wordsworth Editions

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Luxury, Aristocracy, Ruins
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats (1831). “The poetical works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats”, p.387

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Inspiration, Mirrors, Shadow
A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

It is among men of genius and science that atheism alone is found.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Men, Religion, Atheism
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Richard Herne Shepherd (1810). “The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ... Ed. ... by Richard Herne Shepherd”, p.326

I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a sort of wonder that they presume to write my name.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Pain, Writing, Names
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1862). “Relics of Shelley”, p.190

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Peace, War, Games
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Poetry, World
A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Truth, Stupid, May

It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence, submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Father, Fall, Atheism
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “The Necessity of Atheism”, p.8, Booklassic

I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Black, Records, Trophies
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1816). “Alastor; or, The spirit of solitude: and other poems. Facs. repr”, p.3

I have been a wanderer among distant fields. I have sailed down mighty rivers.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Rivers, Fields
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.40, Pearson Education

Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death, Dust, Burning
'Adonais' (1821) st. 38

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Spring, Winter, Wind
'Ode to the West Wind' (1819) l. 65

One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dark, Woods, Hungry
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.226

Far clouds of feathery gold, Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark blue sea.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Dark, Clouds, Islands
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.92, Delphi Classics

Deep truth is imageless.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Truth, Truth Is
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.393, Modern Library

Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Death, Sleep
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.592, Pearson Education

You ought to love all mankind; nay, every individual of mankind. You ought not to love the individuals of your domestic circles less, but to love those who exist beyond it more. Once make the feelings of confidence and of affection universal, and the distinctions of property and power will vanish; nor are they to be abolished without substituting something equivalent in mischief to them, until all mankind shall acknowledge an entire community of rights.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life, Rights, Circles
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1880). “Vindication of natural diet. Refutation of deism. Proposal for putting reform to the vote. Address to the people on the death of the Princess Charlotte. History of a six weeks' tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, etc. Journal at Geneva (including ghost stories) and on return to England, 1816. The assassins. On the punishment of death. On life. On love. On a future state. Speculations on morals. System of government by juries. Fragment on reform. On the revival of li”

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