708 Quotes by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the heights of love’s rare universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire – I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire.

We know not what we do When we speak words.

All things exist as they are perceived: at least in relation to the percipient. ‘The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ But poetry defeats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions. And whether it spreads its own figured curtain or withdraws life’s dark veil from before the scene of things, it equally creates for us a being within our being.

Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world That the pale name of priest might shrink and dwindle Into the Hell from which it first was furled.

Love’s very pain is sweet.

War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, the lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.

Think ye by gazing on each other’s eyes To multiply your lovely selves?

Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can blast the flower, Even when in most unwary hour It blooms in Fancy’s bower. Age cannot Love destroy, But perfidy can rend the shrine In which its vermeil splendours shine.