"Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic."
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
All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who inspire is most are fortunate, As I am now: but those who feel it most Are happier still. Percy Bysshe Shelley
All of us, who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Concerning God, freewill and destiny: Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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. Percy Bysshe Shelley
History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man. Percy Bysshe Shelley
I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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
It is impossible that had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the Bourbons. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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
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
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, satins the white radiance of Eternity, until Death tramples it to fragments. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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
Man's yesterday may never be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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
Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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
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
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
The gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present. Percy Bysshe Shelley
There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been! Percy Bysshe Shelley
When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Type: Poet Date of Birth:
1792-08-04 Year of Death:
1822 Nationality:
English
