A biography for Percy Bysshe Shelleyhasn’t been written yet.
“Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may last!”
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
“And the Spring arose on the garden fair,Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.”
“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?”
“No more let life divide what death can join together.”
“The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.”
“Hence in solitude, or that deserted state when we are surrounded by human beings and yet they sympathize not with us, we love the flowers, the grass, the waters, and the sky. In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart.”
“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!”
“Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Is it not odd that the only generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker.”
“All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.”
“Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.”
“A God made by man undoubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man.”
“We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,The path of its departure still is free.Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability!”
“Only nature knows how to justly proportion to the fault the punishment it deserves.”
“IF [GOD] HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?”
“Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.”
“In fact, the truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.”