Top 400 Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

103. “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

104. “Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

105. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

107. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

110. “The nature of a narrow and malevolent spirit is so essentially incompatible with happiness as to render it inaccessible to the influences of the benignant God.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

111. “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

112. “Man’s yesterday may never be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

113. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

118. “Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone. But grief returns with the revolving year.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

119. “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...”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

120. “The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

121. “Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whatever it touches.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

122. “Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

123. “Till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

124. “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.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

125. “Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

126. “Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glorya bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

127. “Underneath Day’s azure eyes, Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies, A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite’s destined halls.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

128. “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.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

130. “War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, the lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

131. “He hath awakened from the dream of life.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

132. “Worse than despair, Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

134. “Through the sunset of hope, Like the shapes of a dream, What paradise islands of glory gleam!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

136. “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

137. “I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

138. “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

139. “His fine wit Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

140. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

142. “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

143. “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

144. “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

145. “The cloud of mind is discharging its collected lightning.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

146. “A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

147. “I know the cause of all human disappointment – worldly prejudice.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

148. “Venice, it’s temples and palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

149. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley