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Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes - Page 7

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O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Giving, Doe, Our Lives
'Dejection: an Ode' (1802) st. 4

There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy which must sadden, or at least soften every reflecting observer.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Faces, Prophecy, Countenance
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). “The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, p.343

That gracious thing, made up of tears and light.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Light, Rainbow, Tears
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, May Byron, William Hazlitt, James Gillman (2015). “Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Man Behind The Lyrics (Illustrated Edition): Autobiographical Works (Memoirs, Complete Letters, Literary Introspection, Thoughts and Notes on Poetry); Including Extensive Biographies and Studies on S. T. Coleridge”, p.1304, e-artnow

Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Love, Sympathy, Valentines Day
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2001). “On the Constitution of the Church and State”, p.348, Classic Books Company

The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past; the Air and Heaven, of Futurity.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Past, Air, Heaven
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.277

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
Communication, Plain Language, Imagination
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2001). “On the Constitution of the Church and State”, p.326, Classic Books Company

So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sweet, Flower, Sky
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). “Letters, Conversations and Recollections”, p.144

With no other privilege than that of sympathy and sincere good wishes, I would address an affectionate exhortation to the youthful literati, grounded on my own experience. It will be but short; for the beginning, middle, and end converge to one charge: NEVER PURSUE LITERATURE AS A TRADE.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wish, Literature, Beginning Middle And End
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834). “Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.133

All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Love, Family, Happiness
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). “Letters”, p.155

A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mothers Day, Mom, Motherhood
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2015). “The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4 (Part II): The Friend”, p.90, Princeton University Press

Be not merely a man of letters! Let literature be an honorable augmentations to your arms, not constitute the coat or fill the escutcheon!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Literature, Coats
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1856). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.320

The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, just as a day or two after a thorough Debauch and long sustained Drinking-match a man feels all over like a Bruise. Even to admire otherwise than on the whole and where "I admire" is but a synonyme for "I remember, I liked it very much when I was reading it ," is too much an effort, would be too disquieting an emotion!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Drinking, Reading, Men
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1858). “Letters, conversations, and recollections [ed. by T.Allsop].”, p.79

Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ignorance, Ignorant, Vaults
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.108

The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dwarves, Giants, Shoulders
The Friend vol. 2 "On the Principles of Political Knowledge" (1818)

A people are free in proportion as they form their own opinions.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
People, Atheism, Liberty
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1970). “The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Watchman, edited by L. Patton”

The poet is the man made to solve the riddle of the universe who brings the whole soul of man into activity.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Men, Soul, Poet

Poetry, even that of the loftiest, and seemingly, that of the wildest odes, [has] a logic of its own as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets... there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poetry, Odes, Causes
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Engell, Walter Jackson Bate (1984). “Biographia Literaria, Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.9, Princeton University Press

We must not be guilty of taking the law into our own hands, and converting it from what it really is to what we think it ought to be.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Thinking, Hands, Law

Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Twilight, Ignorance, Night
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1854). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions”, p.108

The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Reflection, Mind, Language
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834). “Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.203

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Artist, Form, Figures
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.2612, e-artnow

Prayer is the very highest energy of which the mind is capable.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Prayer, Mind, Energy

The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Philosophical, Character, Men
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2015). “Shakespeare, With Introductory Matter on Poetry, The Drama, and The Stage by S.T. Coleridge: Coleridge’s Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Other Old Poets and Dramatists”, p.61, e-artnow

Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Water, Reason, Source
"The Witness of the Holy Spirit". Book by Charles Prest, p. 18, 1867.

Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp of life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Death, Oil, Lamps
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1853). “Notes: Theological, Political and Miscellaneous”, p.357

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