Top 400 Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 3 of 9

101. “Peace is in the grave.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

104. “All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

105. “Let the blue sky overhead, The green earth on which ye tread, All that must eternal be Witness the solemnity.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

106. “Love’s very pain is sweet.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

107. “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.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

108. “I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

109. “Are we not formed, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar?”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

110. “Hell is a city much like London.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

111. “Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

112. “How wonderful is Death, Death, and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon With lips of lurid blue; The other, rosy as the morn When throned on ocean’s wave It blushes o’er the world; Yet both so passing wonderful!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

113. “I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low, and the stars are shining bright.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

114. “Hell is a city much like London A populous and smoky city.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

115. “Until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

116. “Rough wind, the moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, Wail, for the world’s wrong!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

118. “Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good. I am a God and cannot find it there, Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

119. “In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun O’er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

120. “Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

122. “You must come home with and be my guest; You will give joy to me, and I will do all that is in my power to honor you.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

123. “Poetry strengthens that faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

124. “Science, Poetry, and Thought Are thy lamps; they make the lot Of the dwellers in a cot So serene, they curse it not.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

125. “Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

126. “Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

127. “Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

128. “I love tranquil solitude And such society As is quiet, wise, and good.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

129. “Like a glowworm golden, in a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden its aerial blue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

130. “GOVERNMENT has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

131. “The psychological and moral comfort of a presence at once humble and understanding-this is the greatest benefit that the dog has bestowed upon man.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

132. “A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

133. “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.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

134. “Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

135. “The babe is at peace within the womb, the corpse is at rest within the tomb. We begin in what we end.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

136. “And many an ante-natal tomb Where butterflies dream of the life to come.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

137. “The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

138. “Cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

139. “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!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

140. “The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

141. “Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, 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.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

142. “When my cats aren’t happy, I’m not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they’re just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

143. “How long do you mean to be content?”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

144. “Swiftly walk o’er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joyand fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, Swift be thy flight!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

145. “And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making the earth a slaughter – house!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

146. “As long as skies are blue, and fields are green Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

147. “If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, what doubts should we have concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

148. “It is among men of genius and science that atheism alone is found.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

149. “It is true that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument in its favour.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

150. “To be omnipotent but friendless is to reign.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley