“Belief is involuntary; nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Declaration of Rights (1812)

About Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 – 1822

English Romantic poet, author of 'Ozymandias' and 'Adonais', an elegy for John Keats.

“Winter is come and gone, but grief returns with the revolving year.”

“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”