Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley

There 's not one atom of yon earth But once was living man; Nor the minutest drop of rain, That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, But flowed in human veins;

He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contemplation full of horror and disappointment to his mind, that beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals.

One after another the greatest writers, poets, and artists confirm the fact that their work comes to them from beyond the threshold of consciousness.

I never was attached to that great sect, Whose doctrine is, that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion, though it is in the code Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go. - Epipsychidion

The proselyte to a simple and natural diet, who desires health, must from the moment of his conversion attend to these rules: NEVER TAKE ANY SUBSTANCE INTOT HE STOMACH THAT ONCE HAD LIFE. DRINK NO LIQUID BUT WATER RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL PURITY BY DISTILLATION.

TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART. (Published as Shelley's by Medwin, "The Shelley Papers", 1833, and by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition; afterwards suppressed as of doubtful authenticity.) 1. Shall we roam, my love, To the twilight grove, When the moon is rising bright; Oh, I'll whisper there, In the cool night-air, 5 What I dare not in broad daylight!

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.

IF [GOD] HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?

The Earth is littered with the ruins of empires that once belived they were eternal.

The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?

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

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Soul meets soul on lovers lips.

A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell Of saddest thought.

The more we study, the more we discover our ignorance

Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.

No more let life divide what death can join together.

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

Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past