“The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.”
“O pure of heart! Thou needest not ask of me what this strong music in the soul may be!”
“The Language of the Dream/Night is contrary to that of Waking/Day. It is a language of Images and Sensations, the various dialects of which are far less different from each other, than the various Day-Languages of Nations.”
“Creation rather than painting, or if painting, yet such, and with such co-presence of the whole picture flash'd at once upon the eye, as the sun paints in a camera obscura. (Describing his poetic ideal, 1817)”
“Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
“Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
“Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.”
“The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, And the forrow followed free. We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea.”
“Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”
“Readers may be divided into four classes: 1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also”
Source: Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton: A List of All the Ms. Emendations in Mr. Collier's Folio, 1632
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.”
“He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.”
“Silence does not always mark wisdom.”
Source: Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.”
“What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if,when you awoke,you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”
“Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
“Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.”
“To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”
“And to be wroth with one we love…Doth work like madness in the brain.”
“If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.”
“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”
“A great mind must be androgynous.”
Source: Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes
“If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.”
“Everyone should have two or three hives of bees. Bees are easier to keep than a dog or a cat. They are more interesting than gerbils.”
“Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.”
Source: Lives of northern worthies
“And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
“He went like one that hath been stunn'd, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.”
“Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
“Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.”
“I look'd to Heav'n, and try'd to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as dry as dust.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung.”
Source: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Alone, Alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never saint took pity on My soul in agony”
“A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear, A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet or relief, In word, or sigh, or tear.”
“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze - On me alone it blew.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
“What comes from the heart goes to the heart”
Source: Seven lectures on Shakespeare and Milton
“The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.”
Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
“That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.”
Source: Lyrical Ballads
“There are three classes into which all the women past seventy that ever I knew were to be divided: 1. That dear old soul; 2. That old woman; 3. That old witch.”
Source: Specimens of the table talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space.”
Source: Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions ; and Two Lay Sermons; I. The Statesman's Manual, II. Blessed are Ye that Sow Beside All Waters
“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”
“This world has angels all too few, and heaven is overflowing.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
“So lonely 'twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.”
Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”
“If people could learn history, what lessons it might teach us!”
“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.”
“The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object.”
Source: Aids to reflection in the formation of a manly character on the several grounds of prudence, morality, and religion
“To know, to esteem, to love,-and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
“In many ways doth the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
“And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
“And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
