Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was an English poet. A leading figure of the Romantic Movement, he was known for his radical political and religious views.
Born in Sussex and educated at Eton, Shelley was expelled from Oxford for his polemical The Necessity of Atheism (1811,) which proclaimed his defiance of orthodoxy.
Shelley’s philosophical poem Queen Mab (1813) records his harangues against kings, priests, statesmen, marriage, commerce, and Christianity. His other notable works include Prometheus Unbound (1820,) a philosophical verse drama, Epipsychidion (1821,) a daring moral attack on marriage, and, Adonais (1821,) an elegy on the death of John Keats.
A sailing accident off the coast of Italy abruptly ended Shelley’s life.
Shelley’s second wife was Mary Shelley, author of the Gothic horror novel Frankenstein (1818,) and daughter of the writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
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Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Revenge
What are numbers knit
By force or custom? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Self-Control, Discipline
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
Topics: Fashion
The more we study the more we discover our ignorance.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Learning
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
Nothing in the world is single; all things by law divine in one spirit mix and mingle. Why not I with thine?
—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
Topics: Change
Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Love
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
Topics: Love
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Future, Reflection, Past
Contemporary criticism only represents the amount of ignorance genius has to contend with.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Topics: Criticism
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