Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

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.

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.

Clothing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; 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.

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy. Awake, Voice of sweet song! awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.

The Eighth Commandment was not made for bards.

How many of our virtues originate in the fear of Death — & that while we flatter ourselves that we are melting in Christian Sensibility over the sorrows of our human Brethren and Sisteren, we are in fact, tho' perhaps unconsciously, moved at the prospect of our own End — for who sincerely pities Sea-sickness, Toothache, or a fit of the Gout in a lusty Good-liver of 50?

The knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust; His soul is with the saints, I trust.

And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you, How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you.

He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.

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 came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady's eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,

Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.

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 may dwindle too much and decline altogether into worthless thoughts.