Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley

Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

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.

Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself.

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.

O cease! must hate and death return, Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!

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

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

Man's yesterday may never be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.

There is no real wealth but the labour of man.

Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve; on fancy's boldest wing.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.

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

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugivorous animals in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living fibre... 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.

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

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age.

The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn; Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

Those who inflict must suffer, for they see The work of their own hearts, and this must be Our chastisement or recompense.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Death will come when thou art dead, soon, too soon.

Thou art Justice ne'er for gold May thy righteous laws be sold As laws are in England thou Shield'st alike the high and low.