Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nor the feathery curtains Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch...

Thou art unseen—but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

It is our willThat thus enchains us to permitted ill—We might be otherwise—we might be allWe dream of happy, high majestical.Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek,But in our mind?

And Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

The intense atom glowsA moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?

Concerning God, freewill and destiny: Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted.

Away, away, from men and towns,To the wild wood and the downs.

[T]here is a harmony In autumn, and a luster in its sky...

In mockery of monumental stone.

He lives, he wakes—'tis Death is dead, not he.

Let me set my mournful dittyTo a merry measure;Thou wilt never come for pity,Thou wilt come for pleasure.

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one spirit meet and mingle.

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

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night!

The world's great age begins anew,The golden years return,The earth doth like a snake renewHer winter weeds outworn.

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.

Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.

I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright.

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king.

One word is too often profanedFor me to profane it,One feeling too falsely disdainedFor thee to disdain it.

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 are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?

A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.