Samuel Taylor Coleridge > Quotes

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Literary Remains

“What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poems

“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“Silence does not always mark wisdom.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Poetry: the best words in the best order.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists: With Other Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge. Volume 1

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.”
― Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge , The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“A great mind must be androgynous.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poems

“The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“What comes from the heart goes to the heart”
― samuel taylor coleridge

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Little is taught by contest or dispute, everything by sympathy and love.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance. ”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.”
― Samuel Coleridge

“Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“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.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“No mind is thoroughly well-organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge