Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“They passed the hall, that echoes still,Pass as lightly as you will.The brands were flat, the brands were dying,Amid their own white ashes lying;But when the lady passed, there cameA tongue of light, a fit of flame;And Christabel saw the lady's eye,And nothing else saw she thereby,”

“About, about, in reel and routThe death-fires danced at night;The water, like a witch's oils,Burnt green, and blue, and white”

“And life is thorny; and youth is vain”

“Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rangFrom morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted meWith a wild pleasure, falling on mine earMost like articulate sounds of things to come!So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!And so I brooded all the following morn,Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eyeFixed with mock study on my swimming book.”

“Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.Methinks, its motion in this hush of natureGives it dim sympathies with me who live,Making it a companionable form,Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling SpiritBy its own moods interprets, every whereEcho or mirror seeking of itself,And makes a toy of Thought.”

“The frost performs its secret ministry,Unhelped by any wind.”

“In nature there is nothing melancholy”

“Water, water everywhereNor any drop to drink.”

“O my brethren! I have told Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. Nor deem my zeal fractious or mistimed; For never can true courage dwell with them Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices.”

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

“As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast. - (1772-1834)”

“And in Life's noisiest hour,There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;And to the leading Love-throb in the HeartThro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer EveOn rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.”

“The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.”

“A sight to dream of, not to tell!”

“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 ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shall thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and al things in himselfGreat universal teacher! He shall moldThy spirit and by giving , make it ask.”

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

“Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.”

“Alas; they had been friends in youthbut whispering tongues can poison truth”

“A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!”

“A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,Which finds no natural outlet or relief,In word, or sigh, or tear.”

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

“IIA grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,      A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,      Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,          In word, or sigh, or tear — O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,      All this long eve, so balmy and serene,Have I been gazing on the western sky,      And its peculiar tint of yellow green:And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye!And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,That give away their motion to the stars;Those stars, that glide behind them or between,Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grewIn its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;I see them all so excellently fair,I see, not feel how beautiful they are!III          My genial spirits fail;          And what can these availTo lift the smothering weight from off my breast?          It were a vain endeavour,          Though I should gaze for everOn that green light that lingers in the west:I may not hope from outward forms to winThe passion and the life, whose fountains are within.”

“You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow.”

“What comes from the heart goes to the heart”

“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,Yet she sailed softly too:Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze -On me alone it blew.”

“عندما نجد غلطة في كتابة كاتب جيد، فلنفترض أولاً أننا لم نفهم قبل أن نفترض أن الكاتبجاهل”

“Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.”

“The mariners all ‘gan work the ropes,where they were wont to do:They raised their limbs like lifeless tools - We were a ghastly crew.”

“Willing Suspension of Disbelief”

“A man’s desire is for the woman, but the woman’s desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.”

“And what if all of animated natureBe but organic harps diversely framed,That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweepsPlastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,At once the Soul of each, and God of All?”

“Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!O Youth! for years so many and sweet,'Tis known that Thou and I were one,I'll think it but a fond conceit--It cannot be that Thou art gone!”

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

“And now this spell was snapt: once moreI viewed the ocean green,And look'd far forth, yet little sawOf what had else been seen -Like one that on a lonesome roadDoth walk in fear and dread,And having once turn'd round, walks onAnd turns no more his head;Because he knows a frightful fiendDoth close behind him tread.”

“Everyone should have two or three hives of bees. Bees are easier to keep than a dog or a cat. They are more interesting than gerbils.”

“If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke - Aye! and what then?”

“Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,Glimmered the white moonshine.[...]Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.”

“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”

“I should much wish, like the Indian Vishna, to float along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotus, and wake once in a million years for a few minutes – just to know that I was going to sleep a million years more.”

“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 waves behind us.”

“Tutti gli uomini nascono aristotelici o platonici, cioè razionali o irrazionali: le opinioni e le interpretazioni difficilmente interesseranno i primi, i fatti e le dimostrazioni non convinceranno mai i secondi.”

“Nature has her proper interest; and he will know what it is, who believes and feels, that every thing has a life of its own, and that we are all one life.”

“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,The fair humanities of old religion,The Power, the Beauty, and the MajestyThat had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;They live no longer in the faith of reason;But still the heart doth need a language; stillDoth the old instinct bring back the old names;Spirits or gods that used to share this earthWith man as with their friend; and at this day'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,And Venus who brings every thing that's fair.”

“What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,Its body brevity, and wit its soul.”

“I look'd to Heav'n, and try'd to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as dry as dust.”

“A great mind must be androgynous.”

“What a scream of agony by torture lengthened out that lute sent forth!”

“I shot the ALBATROSS.”

“Swans sing before they die— 't were no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.”

“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.”