Shelley Quotes

At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

As I lay in my bed unable to sleep I challenged Him: Pull out another miracle. Send him back. You can do that. You're God. At that point in my grief, I envisioned how utterly fantastic it would be for others to see what a mighty and awesome God we serve. They could witness a modern-day miracle! I was convinced the only way for this to happen was for God to send Joseph back. It would be a win/win situation! Dozens would come to know Jesus - and - I'd have Joseph home in time for supper. ~ Shelley Ramsey

In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought that the same cause should produce such opposite effects. ~ Mary Shelley

Solitude becomes a sort of tangible enemy, the more dangerous, because it dwells within the citadel itself. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. ~ 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

Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. ~ Mary Shelley

As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

At the very time that philosophers of the most enterprising benevolence were founding in Greece those institutions which have rendered it the wonder and luminary of the world, am I required to believe that the weak and wicked king of an obscure and barbarous nation, a murderer, a traitor and a tyrant, was the man after God's own heart? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Soon, sweet madness
was poured upon my heart, a soft and thrilling sadness ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The howl of self-interest is loud ... but the heart is black which throbs solely to its note. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The mind is a curious thing, Abby. We see what we want to see, we hear what we're hoping to hear. The one thing we all do well is fool ourselves. ~ Shelley Peterson

Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? ~ Mary Shelley

I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be. ~ Mary Shelley

We know not what all this wide world means; its strange mixture of good and evil. But we have been placed here and bid live and hope. I know not what we are to hope; but there is some good beyond us that we must seek; and that is our earthly task. If ~ Mary Shelley

Would you think it strange if I said I was having a good time? We're lost and confused and carrying around a cat. By all accounts, I should be feeling completely at a loss. Irritated. ~ Shelley Shepard Gray

My first job was at a Chicago night club called Mr. Kelly's. ~ Shelley Berman

He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. ~ Mary Shelley

In English, we were still on the Introduction to Poetry Unit, and I'm not lying, if I ever meet Percy Bysshe Shelley walking down the streets of Marysville, I'm going to punch him right in the face. ~ Gary D. Schmidt

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. ~ Mary Shelley

If one wanted models of good behaviour, one must be a model of good behaviour oneself. ~ Shelley Adina

I will be cool, persevering, and prudent. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow creatures. ~ Mary Shelley

Confound the subtlety of lawyers with the subtlety of the law. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave, A dupe and a deceiver! a decay, A traveller from the cradle to the grave Through the dim night of this immortal day. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I have walked the streets of New York and the slums of Nowhere ... and I have loved them both. It wasn't the place but the people that made them perfect. ~ Shelley K. Wall

You have not studied the histories of ancient times, and perhaps know not the life that breathes in them; a soul of beauty and wisdom which had penetrated my heart of hearts. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Let there be light! Said Liberty , And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness. ~ Mary Shelley

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Then reflected, and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive, and walking about. ~ Mary Shelley

Death is the veil which those who live call life;
They sleep, and it is lifted. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life. ~ Mary Shelley

There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet, and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment has been fairly tried. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

She and I are as far apart as the stars in the sky and the soles of my feet." Detective Sean Ryan ~Deception on Sable Hill by Shelley Gray ~ Shelley Gray

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The psychological and moral comfort of a presence at once humble and understanding-this is the greatest benefit that the dog has bestowed upon man. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Despite countless prayers for Joseph to be safe, God said no. His plan remains a mystery. I have had to accept that mystery and trust Him in the dark. ~ Shelley Ramsey

I lead Paco through the house. We pass Shelley in the family room looking at some magazine. "Shelley, this is Paco. He's Alex's friend. Paco, this is my sister, Shelley."
At the mention of Alex's name, Shelley gives a happy squeal.
"Hey, Shelley," Paco says.
Shelley smiles wide.
"Shell-bell, I need you to do me a favor." Shelley bobs her head in response as I whisper, "I need you to keep Mom occupied while I talk to Paco."
Shelley grins, and I know my sister will come through for me. ~ Simone Elkeles

Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! ~ Mary Shelley

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us, Burns, Shelley, were with us. They watch from their graves! ~ Robert Browning

I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. ~ Mary Shelley

You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. The ~ Mary Shelley

With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. ~ Mary Shelley

The nature of a narrow and malevolent spirit is so essentially incompatible with happiness as to render it inaccessible to the influences of the benignant God. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Perhaps, in the future, when machines have attained to a state of perfection - for I confess that I am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility of machinery - then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. ~ Aldous Huxley

Perhaps the only comfort which remains
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Every man, in proportion to his virtue, considers himself, with respect to the great community of mankind, as the steward and guardian of their interests in the property which he chances to possess. Every man, in proportion to his wisdom, sees the manner in which it is his duty to employ the resources which the consent of mankind has intrusted to his discretion. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. This book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice. ~ Mary Shelley

Going Home
Take a step towards home.

It is always the most simple
and
direct path.

Let the questions fall away.

The answers don't matter.

Just carry what you are given
and start walking. ~ Shelley Richardson

Not that pain is the worst thing in the universe. Interesting things happen when you adapt pain for your own. This thing you were prepared to spend your life flinching from is suddenly just another piece of information. ~ Shelley Jackson

Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. ~ Mary Shelley

As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I found myself similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read, and to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathized with, and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind, I was dependent on none, and related to none ... and there was none to lament my annihilation ... what did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them. ~ Mary Shelley

It seemed as if the longer she lived, the more was taken from her. Not gradually, as old age fell into the inevitable, but lobbed off in great chunks, the healthy branches sacrificed along with the frail. ~ Shelley Noble

.,,women are numbed enough to endure rough sex acts through extreme humiliation. When alcohol isn't enough and the pain spirals into addiction, porn stars are sent to local doctors in conspiracy with the porn industry to receive prescriptions for Vicodin, Xanax, Valium and other anti-anxiety drugs to help them cope with the trauma. ~ Shelley Lubben

It seems all "protection" has to be monitored, considered, weighed and justified - I am suggesting we do that (but it's something Mary Shelley (and Gertrude Stein) also suggest). "Torch Song," the book's final section, looks at an arson committed by someone hired to protect the wilderness from fires, a catastrophic failure of protection! ~ Laura Mullen

I saw- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together ... Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. ~ Mary Shelley

For the Department of Energy to conduct this investigation is like the fox watching the hen house. ~ Shelley Berkley

A child fairer than a pictured cherub - a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. ~ Mary Shelley

In my stories I kill off every love scene with a joke. Don't try this at home. ~ Shelley Malec Vitale

Where is perfection? Where I cannot reach. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

When one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. ~ Mary Shelley

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fame, power, and gold, are loved for their own sakes - are worshipped with a blind, habitual idolatry. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The flood of time is rolling on;
We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone
To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.
Have ye done well? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. ~ Mary Shelley

I was looking at the sensoriums of heroes. I was sensing through the eyes and nose of Shelley and John Webster, and using the hearing and touch of Ginsberg and Duncan and Kerouac–– and the jazz lucidity of Creeley, and the Doug fir of Snyder, and the almost mystical, physical perceptions of D.H. Lawrence and of Olson himself. I was convinced that poetry was about, by, and from, the meat, that poetry was the product of flesh brushing itself against experience. We are seekers moving in the Tathagata brushing ourselves against the universe of the real, solid illusions. It is by our touches that we become ourselves –– as our ancestors became us and as we became our maturing, sharpening, brightening selves. ~ Michael McClure

There is a bedrock decency to people in the Midwest. They are thoughtful and ready to help you if something needs to be done. ~ Shelley Fabares

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. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I shall quit your vessel on the ice-raft which brought me hither, and shall seek the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile, and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch, who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars, or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense, will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness. ~ Mary Shelley

I had periods when I was out of work, and I still do - I just don't worry about them as much any more. ~ Shelley Conn

That is the beauty of cancer, it tells you that your days are limited, that you could die at any point. It is that perspective that allows you to live a better life while you're here. ~ Shelley Hamlin

Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets food is love and fame. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The careful rearer of the ductile human plant can instil his own religion, and surround the soul by such a moral atmosphere, as shall become to its latest day the air it breathes. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Volume II: Chapter 5
The God sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence in heaps they die.
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;
Arrests their navies on the ocean's plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main. ~ Mary Shelley

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone. But grief returns with the revolving year. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Whether that lady's gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness where it left delight,

I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odors there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death or change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.

(--Conclusion, Autumn - A Dirge) ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I'm one of those people who thinks you can have a happy life and still be an artist. ~ Shelley Duvall

Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, All that can adorn and bless Art thou let deeds, not words, express Thine exceeding loveliness. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Never strive to be part of the norm. If people think you strange ... CELEBRATE. Normal people try way to hard to please others and never end up pleasing themselves. Be ABnormal. It's more fun. ~ Shelley K. Wall

Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people! ~ Mary Shelley

Bad memories were hard enough, but it was torture to be haunted by the good. ~ Shelley Noble

You have games on there?" he asks.
"Yeah," I answer for her. "She's become a checkers fanatic. Shelley, show him how it works."
While Shelley slowly taps the screen with her knuckles, Alex watches, seemingly fascinated.
When the checkers screen comes up, Shelley nudges Alex's hand.
"You go first," he says.
She shakes her head.
"She wants you to go first," I tell him.
"Cool." He taps the screen.
I watch, getting all mushy inside, as this tough guy plays quietly with my big sister.
"Do you mind if I make a snack for her?" I say, desperate to leave the room.
"Nah, go ahead," he says, his concentration on the game.
"You don't have to let her win," I say before leaving. "She can hold her own in checkers."
"Uh, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am tryin' to win," Alex says. He has a genuine grin on his face, without trying to act cocky or cool. ~ Simone Elkeles

When the power of imparting joy is equal to the will, the human soul requires no other heaven. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

If all the thought which had been expended on the construction of engines of agony and death - the modes of aggression and defence, the raising of armies, and the acquirement of those arts of tyranny and falsehood without which mixed multitudes could neither be led nor governed - had been employed to promote the true welfare and extend the real empire of man, how different would have been the present situation of human society! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I have drunken deep of joy ... ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The leprous corpse, touch'd by this spirit tender,
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour
Is chang'd to fragrance, they illumine death
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows
Be as a sword consum'd before the sheath
By sightless lightning? - the intense atom glows
A moment, then is quench'd in a most cold repose. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. ~ Mary Shelley

Fortunately, Judge Richey's decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is an example of how far the purge of Christian values has gone in America. ~ Bruce L. Shelley

Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding, and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley