Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

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No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I have known books written on Tolerance, the proper title of which would be — intolerant or intolerable books on tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly to inculcate tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least with indulgence, articles of faith which tens of thousands ten times told of his fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures believe with all their souls, and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in this world, and their hopes of salvation in the next, — those articles being at least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent in themselves?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The true key to the declension of the Roman empire — which is not to be found in all Gibbon's immense work — may be stated in two words: — the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Every man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. I do not think it possible that anyone born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and I am sure that no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian.. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute; the other considers it a power.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Iago's soliloquy— the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Never, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In the treatment of nervous cases, he is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born under happier stars. I cannot afford it.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
On awaking he…instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poor little foal of an oppressèd race!
I love the languid patience of thy face.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It were a vain endeavor,
Though I should gaze forever On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are
within.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable. It is no doubt a sublimer effort of genius than the Greek style; but then it depends much more on execution for its effect.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Nought cared this Body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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
It is a flat'ning Thought, that the more we have seen, the less we have to say.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
But metre itself implies a passion, i. e. a state of excitement, both in the Poet's mind, & is expected in that of the Reader.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Force yourself to reflect on what you read, paragraph by paragraph.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
There is small chance of truth at the goal, where there is not childlike humility at the starting-post.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel around and again they behold thee!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premises, but in the nature and parts of premises.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge