1792-1822, British Poet
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.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Translation]
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.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Seasons]
Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, — but it returneth.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Change]
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 – [Love]
Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Empire]
Man's yesterday may never be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Change]
O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Winter]
Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life… is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Obscenity]
Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Nature]
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Music]
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — he hath awakened from the dream of life — 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Bereavement]
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Poetry and Poets]
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Poetry and Poets]
Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whatever it touches.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Power]
Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Revenge]
Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Critics and Criticism]
Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, but leech-like to their fainting country cling, till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, — a people starved and stabbed in the untilled field…
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Tyranny]
The beauty of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself to the very disguise and indicate the shape it hides from the manner in which it is worn. A majestic form and graceful motions will express themselves through the most barbarous and tasteless costume.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Dress]
The Galilean is not a favorite of mine. So far from owing him any thanks for his favor, I cannot avoid confessing that I owe a secret grudge to his carpentership.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Jesus Christ]
The gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.
Percy Bysshe Shelley – [Future]
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