254 quotes
Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
Through the sunset of hope,
Like the shapes of a dream,
What paradise islands of glory gleam!
Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.
The Revolt of Islam (1817)
A Christian, a Deist, a Turk, and a Jew, have equal rights: they are men and brethren.
Declaration of Rights (1812)
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
A Defence of Poetry (1821)
Spirit of nature! all-sufficing power,
Necessity! thou mother of the world!
Queen Mab (1813)
The moon of Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set;
While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon,
The cross leads generations on.
Hellas (1821)
Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.
A Defence of Poetry (1821)
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Song to the Men of England (1819)
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
The Indian Serenade (1819)
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life.
Sonnet (1824)
Love's Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war.
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day,
Night followed, clad with stars.
Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, — that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.
Mont Blanc (1816)
Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.
Declaration of Rights (1812)
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
To a Skylark (1821)
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?
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!
Declaration of Rights (1812)
I weep for Adonais — he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
Adonais (1821)
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.