Quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

My eyes make pictures, when they are shut.

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yes, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea

Good and bad men are less than they seem.

Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, etc., if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics.

Blest hour! it was a luxury to be!

The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so.

The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—Why look'st thou so?"—"With my crossbowI shot the Albatross."

And in today already walks tomorrow.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,Like April hoarfrost spread;But where the ship's huge shadow lay,The charmed water burnt alwayA still and awful red.

We listened and looked sideways up!Fear at my heart, as at a cup,My lifeblood seemed to sip.

The history of man for the nine months preceding his birth would, probably, be far more interesting and contain events of greater moment than all the three score and ten years that follow it.

In looking at objects of Nature while I am thinking, as at yonder moon dim-glimmering through the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be seeking, as it were asking for, a symbolical language for something within me that already and forever exists, than observing anything new.

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,That eats the she-wolf's young.

The most general definition of beauty… Multeity in Unity.

"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see,The Devil knows how to row."

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,The furrow followed free;We were the first that ever burstInto that silent sea.

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

The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out:At one stride comes the dark;With far-heard whisper o'er the seaOff shot the specter bark.

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.

Trochee trips from long to short;From long to long in solemn sortSlow Spondee stalks.

"The game is done! I've won, I've won!"Quoth she, and whistles thrice.