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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

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Famous Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

“Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shows the greatness of man, and should at the same time teach him humility.”

MenShouldMayArtShowsDifferencesTeachDesignGreatnessHumilityPaintingArchitectureWorks Of ArtSculptureExhibitsGreatness Of Man
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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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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“Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.”

MaySaidCertainQualityVirtueBecomingInstrumentsVicesOccasionsSensibilitySeductionOrnamentsAmiableAttire
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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“The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems.”

FirstsMayLittlesStatesRunningReadingHoursBehindsClassReturnReaderPureThirdsSlaveGlassesRefusePreservesSandBagsFourthWorthlessCastingPassing AwayGemsFirst ClassSpongesJellyDregsHour Glasses
Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in him. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed.”

MenMayCharacterDevilAngelDestroyedThis LifeBeast
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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“Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of them; and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools by those who, however prudent in their opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise.”

MaySaidSometimesOpportunityChanceOpinionCourageFoolFortuneFavorsEnterprisePrudentValor
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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“Centres, or centre-pieces of wood, are put by builders under an arch of stone while it is in the process of construction till the keystone is put in. Just such is the use Satan makes of pleasures to construct evil habits upon; the pleasure lasts till the habit is fully formed; but that done the habit may stand eternal. The pleasures are sent for firewood, and the hell begins in this life.”

MayDoneUseLastsEvilProcessPleasureHellPiecesHabitEternalStonesWoodsThis LifeSatanConstructionCentreConstructsBuilderArchesKeystonesFirewood
Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“The misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have married unhappily; in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum-total of the unhappiness of a man's life are easily counted and distinctly remembered.”

MenYearsHumansMayChildrenMadeLife IsCertainMarriedMassDaughterTradeMiseryHuman LifeRememberedUnhappinessUnfortunateIntervals
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
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“God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear, In strength and health for many a year; And O! preserve my father too, And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents' hope and joy; And O! preserve my brothers both From evil doings, and from sloth, And may we always love each other, Our friends, our father, and our mother, And still, O Lord, to me impart An innocent and grateful heart, That after my last sleep I may Awake to thy eternal day! Amen.”

YearsHeartMayStillsLastsJoyMotherEvilFatherParentPrayerSleepPayLordGraceBrotherEternalGratefulDearDuesInnocentPreservesAwakeMy BrotherGrantsReverenceOur FatherLove Each OtherImpartSlothAmenDoingsGrateful Heart
Book:The Poetical Works of Samuel T. 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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“It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity, and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel-reading.”

MindHumansMayReadingPleasureEffortNovelWorstEffectsHabitMereCuriosityExcitementHuman MindReceivingSensibilityHabitualExertion
Book:The works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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“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”

MayLittlesBookStatesReadingClassFourReturnReaderSakeGlassesProfitValuableSandBagsDividedDiamondLiteracyStrainSpongesDregsMoguls
Book:Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton: A List of All the Ms. Emendations in Mr. Collier's Folio, 1632
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“'Tis a month before the month of May, And the spring comes slowly up this way.”

WayMayMonthsSpring
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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“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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“I must reject fluids and ethers of all kinds, magnetical, electrical, and universal, to whatever quintessential thinness they may be treble distilled, and as it were super-substantiated.”

KindMayUniversalAll KindsRejectsElectricityFluidElectricalQuintessentialThinness
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
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“For I often please myself with the fancy, now that I may have saved from oblivion the only striking passage in a whole volume, and now that I may have attracted notice to a writer undeservedly forgotten.”

MayWholePleaseForgottenSavedFancyPassagesVolumeQuotationsOblivion
Book:The complete works: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions. Ed. by [William Greenougl Thayer] Shedd in 7 Vol
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“I do not wish you to act from these truths; no, still and always act from your feelings; only meditate often on these truths that sometime or other they may become your feelings.”

MayStillsFeelingsWishWish You
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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