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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

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Famous Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

“Remorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison.”

IfsHeartGrowsTreeTearsProudGentlePoisonRepentanceRemorseDewGloomyTrue Repentance
Book: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
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“Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:--for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action.”

IfsThinkingMenMindActionProcessLosesNaturalAnimalMeditationObjectsBalanceHealthyCreaturesMereIntellectImpressionOperationsProportionFacultyInwardDistinguishedBrutesContemplative
Book:Lectures Upon Shakspeare
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“Hamlet 's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.”

IfsThinkingWantShouldMayDoeReasonPlayCharacterSeemsLastsOpportunityNaturalEffectsObjectsHabitSkillsMereAccidentsPracticalsCuriousIncidentsSmack
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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“It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful appetite.”

IfsYearsWellsMayBookNaturalTreeReturnSeasonsFruitDuesChosenExcellentAppetiteRemarksGratificationNourishmentIntervalsMiltonRaphaelFruit TreesSaying Less
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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“There is no slight danger from general ignorance; and the only choice which Providence has graciously left to a vicious government is either to fall by the people, if they are suffered to become enlightened, or with them, if they are kept enslaved and ignorant.”

PeopleIfsGovernmentChoicesFallLeftDangerIgnoranceIgnorantEnlightenedProvidenceVicious
Book:The Friend: a series of essays ... First American, from the second London edition
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“How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the characters of the three patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure if ever man could, without impropriety, be called, or supposed to be, "the friend of God," Abraham was that man. We are not surprised that Abimelech and Ephron seem to reverence him so profoundly. He was peaceful, because of his conscious relation to God.”

IfsMenCharacterSeemsBeautifulThreeConsciousRelationPeacefulSupposed To BeReverenceAbrahamGenesis
Book:Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are beasts,--the first and the wisest of beasts, it may be, but still true beasts. We shall only differ in degree and not in kind,--just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of the materialists of all the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as beasts, and this also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of the soul within us that makes the difference.”

IfsFirstsKindMayStillsSoulSchoolDifferencesConsciousnessDegreesPossessionBeastImmortalElephantsWisestConcessionsSlugsImmortal Soul
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
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“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places.The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”

IfsPoetryAttentionCasesPoetOughtFaultsDefinitionsProseRelativeVersesPropriety
Book:Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes
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“Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium. Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are, the more necessary it is to be plain.”

IfsShouldWritingLanguageImaginationAttentionWrittenStyleOughtPagesFaultsMediumsProseImaginativeNoticingPlain Language
Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up; for possibly, they say, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little superstition in this, yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any; there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on; it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give His precious blood for it; therefore despise it not.”

IfsMenWayGivingMayLittlesSoulNamesChristWorkGracePiecesWrittenBloodPaperJewDespiseSuperstitionsSmallest
Book:Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Marginalia (5 v.)
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