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The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Philosophy

More quotes by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?

Love's Philosophy (1819)

The king ...
like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a king and virtue.

Queen Mab (1813)

Honour sits smiling at the sale of truth.

Queen Mab (1813)

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

The lone couch of his everlasting sleep.

All Percy Bysshe Shelley quotes →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Percy Bysshe Shelley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.