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Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes - Page 9

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And on the pedestal these words appear:
 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
 The lone

And on the pedestal these words appear:
 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
 The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Kings, Names, Despair
"Ozymandias" l. 9 (1819)

Sow seed--but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth--let no imposter heap; Weave robes--let not the idle wear; Forge arms--in your defence to bear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Tyrants, Rights, Arms
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1874). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley; Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments”, p.247

Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Passion, Mind, Religion
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.732, Pearson Education

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Stupid, Race, Despair
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.946, Delphi Classics

For this is the most civil sort of lie That can be given to a man's face. I now Say what I think.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lying, Men, Thinking
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (1855). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: In Three Volumes”, p.391

The babe is at peace within the womb, the corpse is at rest within the tomb. We begin in what we end.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death, Ends, Babe
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.711, Pearson Education

Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Song, Learning, Men
'Julian and Maddalo' (1818) l. 544

And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making the earth a slaughter - house!

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

In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Infancy Is, Literature, Poet
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.28

There is a harmony In autumn, and a luster in its sky...

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fall, Autumn, Sky

But hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth Are children of one mother, even Love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mother, Hope, Children
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1853). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.151

The soul's joy lies in doing.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Happiness, Laughter, Lying

The good want power, but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want: worse need for them. The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wise, Wisdom, Powerful
'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 1, l. 625

God is represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; he is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ignorance, Logic, Infinite
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.85, Wordsworth Editions

Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wisdom, Found, Mankind
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Donald H. Reiman, Neil Fraistat (2004). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.626, JHU Press

Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good. I am a God and cannot find it there, Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Beautiful, Kings, Revenge
'Prometheus Unbound' (1820) act 1, l. 638

Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, but leech-like to their fainting country cling, till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, - a people starved and stabbed in the untilled field.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Country, Blow, Blood
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.248

How wonderful is death! Death and his brother sleep.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death, Brother, Sleep
'The Daemon of the World' part 1, l. 1 (a revision of the opening lines of 'Queen Mab')

Among true and real friends, all is common; and were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friend.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Friends, Real, Ignorance

A husband and wife ought to continue united so long as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration.

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

Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thinking, Reason, Obedience
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.92, Wordsworth Editions

Worse than despair, Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hope, Despair, Bitterness
Percy Bysshe Shelley (2012). “The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.1114, JHU Press

[L]ike thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Sweet, Spring, Winter
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1853). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.612

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Running, Clouds, Race
1820 'To a Skylark', stanza 3.

How beautiful is sunset when the glow Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Beautiful, Sunset, Land
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Geoffrey Matthews, Kelvin Everest (1989). “The Poems of Shelley: 1817-1819”, p.666, Pearson Education

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