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 you 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

“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

“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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“What comes from the heart goes to the heart”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

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

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