WIST Quotations

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- “A Defence of Poetry” (1821-03, pub. 1840)

Dave — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 17:57:28 +0000

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 pleasure of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
“A Defence of Poetry” (1821-03, pub. 1840)
(Source)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- “Death,” st. 3 (1820)

Dave — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:44:53 +0000

First our pleasures die — and then
Our hopes, and then our fears — and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust — and we die too.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
“Death,” st. 3 (1820)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- “Ozymandias” (1818)

Dave — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:14:54 +0000

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: — Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
“Ozymandias” (1818)

Full text.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- “Queen Mab” (1813)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Love withers under constraint: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
“Queen Mab” (1813)

Full text.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- “To a Skylark” (1821)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs
Are those that tell of saddest thought.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
“To a Skylark” (1821)

Full text.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- A Declaration of Rights, ch. 12 (1812)

Dave — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:38:27 +0000

Falsehood is a scorpion that will sting itself to death.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
A Declaration of Rights, ch. 12 (1812)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Declaration of Rights, article 25 (1812)

Dave — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:35:41 +0000

If a person’s religious ideas correspond not with your own, love him nevertheless. How different would yours have been, had the chance of birth placed you in Tartary or India!

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Declaration of Rights, article 25 (1812)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Peter Bell the Third, Pt. III, st. 1 (1819)

Dave — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:06:10 +0000

Hell is a city much like London —
A populous and smoky city.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Peter Bell the Third, Pt. III, st. 1 (1819)

Full text.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Prometheus Unbound, “The Earth,” Act IV, l. 403 (1819)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Prometheus Unbound, “The Earth,” Act IV, l. 403 (1819)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Prometheus Unbound, Act 2 (1820)

Dave — Mon, 09 May 2022 23:11:20 +0000

Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow!
The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Prometheus Unbound, Act 2 (1820)
(Source)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

Dave — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:02:48 +0000

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts 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? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED? If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

Full text, 1813 ed. The text is followed by a citation of "Systeme de la Nature (1781)" (by Baron d'Holbach), but it's unclear whether, or what part of, this is being quoted by Shelley.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Poem (1819), “The Mask of Anarchy,” st. 38

Dave — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:12:13 +0000

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many — they are few.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Poem (1819), “The Mask of Anarchy,” st. 38
(Source)

Writing as the voice of England talking to her children. The words are repeated in the final stanza.

The poem was subtitled "Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester," referring to the Peterloo Massacre (1819-08-16), when a large, peaceful demonstration for parliamentary representation by millworkers and their families was attacked by regular and irregular cavalry troops, attempting to arrest the protest leader, Henry Hunt, and break up the assembly. Hundreds were wounded, and around a dozen killed.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Poem (1820), “Death,” st. 3, Posthumous Poems (1824)

Dave — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:12:12 +0000

First our pleasures die — and then
Our hopes, and then our fears — and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust — and we die too.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Poem (1820), “Death,” st. 3, Posthumous Poems (1824)
(Source)

Shelley, Percy Bysshe -- Poem (1820), “Death,” st. 4, Posthumous Poems (1824)

Dave — Thu, 21 May 2026 15:53:06 +0000

All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot —
Love itself would, did they not.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English poet
Poem (1820), “Death,” st. 4, Posthumous Poems (1824)
(Source)