Quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf a...”

“The one red leaf, the last of its clan,That dances as often as dance it can,Hanging so light, and hanging so high,On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.”

“Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.”

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

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

“But I do not doubt that it is beneficial sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as in a picture, the image of a grander and better world; for if the mind grows used to the trivia of daily life, it m...”

“The many men, so beautiful!And they all dead did lie:And a thousand thousand slimy thingsLived on; and so did I.”

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

“Silence does not always mark wisdom.”

“If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the wa...”

“Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind.”

“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 ...”

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

“Poetry: the best words in the best order.”

“Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.”

“Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.”

“In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.”

“Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.”

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.”

“Then all the charm Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other.”