Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a key Romantic poet known for his radical ideas on love, freedom, and social justice, particularly in works like 'Prometheus Unbound'.

Men Love Life Dream Sweet Wise
Born
August 4, 1792
Died
July 8, 1822
Quotes
437
Rank
#64

Quote collection

Percy Bysshe Shelley quotes (page 5 of 22)

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"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. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder."

Mother Dream Sweet
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"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."

Nature Sunset Kissing
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"Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found."

Meditation Sage Calm
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"Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!"

Art Moving Spirit
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"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away."

Rivers Rolling Decay
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"The pale stars are gone! For the sun, their swift shepherd, To their folds them compelling, In the depths of the dawn, Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and the flee Beyond his blue dwelling, As fawns flee the leopard."

Stars Blue Dwelling
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"He has outsoared the shadow of our night; envy and calumny and hate and pain, and that unrest which men miscall delight, can touch him not and torture not again; from the contagion of the world's slow stain, he is secure."

Death Pain Hate
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"It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower -- and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel."

Wise Spring Flower
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"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!"

Hate Past Men
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"Here I swear, and as I break my oath may ... eternity blast me, here I swear that never will I forgive Christianity! It is the only point on which I allow myself to encourage revenge... Oh, how I wish I were the Antichrist, that it were mine to crush the Demon; to hurl him to his native Hell never to rise again - I expect to gratify some of this insatiable feeling in Poetry."

Crush Revenge Feelings
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"January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps -- but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers."

Time Grief Flower
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"When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead - When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed."

Lying Clouds Light
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"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."

Dream Flower Clouds
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"First our pleasures die - and then our hopes, and then our fears - and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust - and we die too."

Dust Debt Firsts
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"Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay."

Wise Wisdom Men
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"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."

Marriage Wise Home
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"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity."

Inspirational Life Time
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"I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder."

Laughter Rain Clouds
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"The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself."

Sorrow Pleasure
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"That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon."

Moon Night Fire
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