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Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes - Page 6

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In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very

In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Philosophy, Novelty, Genius
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.2033, e-artnow

Chance is but the pseudonym of God for those particular cases, which he does not choose to acknowledge openly with his own sign manual.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Doe, Pseudonyms, Chance

The author of Biographia Literaria was already a ruined man. Sometimes, however, to be a "ruined man" is itself a vocation.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Sometimes, Vocation

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Beautiful, Character, Men
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1851). “Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.73

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Book, Saying Less, Years
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1858). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.230

All nature seems at work.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Garden, Seems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1854). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.281

Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Hope, Work, Nectar
'Work Without Hope' (1825)

It has been observed before that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves characterize the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion; or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's spirit.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Beautiful, Passion, Unity
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834). “Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.183, Classic Books Company

History has a point of view; it cannot be all things to all people.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Views, People, Point Of View

Of no agenor of any religion, or party or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Party, Mind, Depth
Table Talk 15 Mar. 1834 (1835)

How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Motivational, Good Morning, Vices
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Seamus Perry (2002). “Coleridge's Notebooks: A Selection”, p.71, Oxford University Press, USA

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? Three treasures, love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath; And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mean, Angel, Night
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1867). “The Friend: a series of essays ... First American, from the second London edition”, p.348

Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Book, Heart, Illustration
Hartley Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1852). “Lives of northern worthies”, p.133

The water-lily, in the midst of waters, opens its leaves and expands its petals, at the first pattering of the shower, and rejoices in the rain-drops with a quicker sympathy than the packed shrubs in the sandy desert.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Freedom, Rain, Water Lily

The first man of science was he who looked into a thing, not to learn whether it furnished him with food, or shelter, or weapons, or tools, armaments, or playwiths but who sought to know it for the gratification of knowing.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Knowing, Tools

There are errors which no wise man will treat with rudeness while there is a probability that they may be the refraction of some great truth still below the horizon.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wise, Men, Errors
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1839). “On the Constitution of the Church and State According to the Idea of Each”, p.279

All thoughts, all passions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame All are but ministers of Love And feed His sacred flame.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Love, Life, Passion
'Love' (1800)

I may not hope from outward forms to win / The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Passion, Winning, May
'Dejection: an Ode' (1802) st. 3

The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Imagination, Mind, Perception
Biographia Literaria ch. 13 (1817)

This is the course of every evil deed, that, propagating still it brings forth evil.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Evil, Deeds, Stills

It is a gentle and affectionate thought, that in immeasurable height above us, at our first birth, the wreath of love was woven with sparkling stars for flowers.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Stars, Flower, Woven
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1854). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.531

The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, all hope of further amendment was lost.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Names, Reform
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.294

To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must be as in the ark between the destroyed and the about-to-be renovated world. The raven must be sent out before the dove, and ominous controversy must precede peace and the olive wreath.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Truth, Ravens, Ark
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). “The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.342

Oh, the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world within them!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Attention, World

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
Men, Sea, Rivers
"Kubla Khan" l. 1 (1816)

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