Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley

A lovely lady, garmented in lightFrom her own beauty.

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.

In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect.

The Pilgrim of Eternity [Lord Byron], whose fameOver his living head like heaven is bent,An early but enduring monument,Came, veiling all the lightnings of his songIn sorrow.

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose...

The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset's fire.

He is made one with Nature: there is heardHis voice in all her music, from the moanOf thunder to the song of night's sweet bird.

He hath awakened from the dream of life.

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 beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

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

One by one, and two by two,He tossed them human hearts to chew.

Rarely, rarely, comest thou,Spirit of Delight!

He is a portion of the lovelinessWhich once he made more lovely.

Kings are like stars—they rise and set, they haveThe worship of the world, but no repose.

Is it not odd that the only generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;A traveler from the cradle to the graveThrough the dim light of this immortal day.

Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

When the lamp is shatteredThe light in the dust lies dead—When the cloud is scatteredThe rainbow's glory is shed.

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory —

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,But for our grief, as if it had not been,And grief itself be mortal!

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....