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Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes - Page 17

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Never pursue literature as a trade.

Never pursue literature as a trade.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Literature, Trade, Pursue
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Sara Coleridge Coleridge (1847). “Biographia Literaria; Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.231

Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole, to Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, that slid into my soul.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Queens, Sleep, Insomnia
'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1798) pt. 5

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Soul, Intellectual, What If
'The Eolian Harp' (1796) l. 44

Great old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get his own belief.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Country, Book, Mean
"Lives of Northern Worthies".

I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sharks, Chemistry
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1933). “Unpublished Letters”

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
Fear, Lonesome, Trekking
'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1798) pt. 6

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Inspirational, Funny, Water
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" l. 119 (1798).

O pure of heart! Thou needest not ask of me what this strong music in the soul may be!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Strong, Heart, Soul
1802 'Dejection: An Ode', stanza 5.

The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation are, — 1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to acquirers; and 3. Hope to all.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Government, Two, Three
"The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions".

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)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Eye, Sun, Cameras

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Light, Track

Farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Essence, Tragedy, Farce
1833 Table Talk (published 1835), entry for 25 Aug.

Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sweet, Voice, Issues
'Dejection: an Ode' (1802) st. 4

Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Death, Funeral, Heaven
'Epitaph on an Infant' (1794)

God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, you piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
God, Fall, Voice
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1872). “Poetical Works of Samuel T. Coleridge”, p.118

When thieves come, I bark; when gallants, I am still - So perform both my master's and mistress's will.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dog, Mistress, Thieves
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2015). “The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4 (Part II): The Friend”, p.170, Princeton University Press

[Coleridge] selected an instance of what was called the sublime, in DARWIN, who imagined the creation of the universe to have taken place in a moment, by the explosion of a mass of matter in the womb, or centre of space. In one and the same instant of time, suns and planets shot into systems in every direction, and filled and spangled the illimitable void! He asserted this to be an intolerable degradation -referring, as it were, all the beauty and harmony of nature to something like the bursting of a barrel of gunpowder! that spit its combustible materials into a pock-freckled creation!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Taken, Science, Space

How many of our virtues originate in the fear of Death & that while we flatter ourselves that we are melting in Christian Sensibility over the sorrows of our human Brethren and Sisteren, we are in fact, tho' perhaps unconsciously, moved at the prospect of our own End for who sincerely pities Sea-sickness, Toothache, or a fit of the Gout in a lusty Good-liver of 50?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Christian, Sea, Sorrow
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1956). “Collected Letters: 1820-1825”

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Nature, Forests, Hills
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2009). “The Ancient Mariner and Selected Poems (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.56, ReadHowYouWant.com

Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action - that the end will sanction any means.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Country, Mean, History
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835). “Specimens of the table talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.248

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Writing, Plain Language, Imagination

To see him act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Reading, Light, Acting
Table Talk 17 Apr. 1823 (1835)

Alone, Alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never saint took pity on My soul in agony

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sea, Agony, Soul
'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1798) pt. 4

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze - On me alone it blew.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ships, Flew, Breeze
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2015). “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”, p.266, e-artnow

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
Beautiful, Lying, Men
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2012). “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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