Top 400 Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

152. “In a drama of the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

153. “Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

154. “Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

155. “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

156. “Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets food is love and fame.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

157. “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

158. “Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

159. “Joy, once lost, is pain.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

160. “Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

161. “When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindu, his best friends hear no more of him.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

162. “Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

163. “The desire of the moth for the star.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

164. “The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

165. “The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

166. “The great community of mankind had been subdivided into ten thousand communities, each organized for the ruin of the other.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

167. “The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

168. “I change, but I cannot die.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

169. “Strange thoughts beget strange deeds.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

170. “There is no real wealth but the labor of man.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

171. “We know not what we do When we speak words.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

172. “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

173. “Jealousy’s eyes are green.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

174. “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

175. “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

176. “Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may last!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

177. “The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

178. “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

179. “Where is perfection? Where I cannot reach.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

180. “Teas, Where small talk dies in agonies.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

181. “Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

182. “It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

183. “Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind; The foul cubs like their parents are.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

184. “Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

185. “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

186. “Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

187. “But hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth Are children of one mother, even Love.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

188. “There is no real wealth but the labor of people. Were the mountains of gold and silver, the world would not be one grain of corn the richer; no one comfort would be added to the human race.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

189. “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

190. “Fame, power, and gold, are loved for their own sakes – are worshipped with a blind, habitual idolatry.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

191. “What do you think? Young women of rank eat – you will never guess what – garlick!”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

192. “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

193. “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

194. “The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset’s fire.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

195. “O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

196. “I love Love – though he has wings, And like light can flee.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

197. “For there are deeds which have no form, sufferings which have no tongue.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

198. “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

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

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

200. “O! I burn with impatience for the moment of the dissolution of intolerance; it has injured me.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley