Quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Common sense in an uncommon degree and is what the world calls wisdom.

Five miles meandering with mazy motion,Through dale the sacred river ran,Then reached the caverns measureless to man,And sank the tumult to a lifeless oceanAnd 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from farAncestral voices prophesying war

Friendship is like a sheltering tree.

He saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard, by his own stable And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel.

He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

My case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement of the Volition, and not of the intellectual faculties.

No Voice; but oh! the silence sank like music on my heart.

Our own heart, and not other men's opinion, form our true honor.

Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like playthings by the bedside of a child deathly sick.

Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be good sense at all events just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house, at least.

Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! I love the languid patience of thy face.

Swans sing before they die -- t'were no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing.

Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never.

The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

The wise only possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.

There are three classes into which all the women past seventy that ever I knew were to be divided 1.That dear old soul2. That old woman3. That old witch.

There is no such thing as a worthless book though there are some far worse than worthless; no book that is not worth preserving, if its existence may be tolerated; as there may be some men whom it may be proper to hang, but none should be suffered to starve.

There is one art of which man should be master, the art of reflection.

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

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

What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in you hand Ah, what then?

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

Silence does not always mark wisdom.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.