That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEThat willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEI wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEIf a man is not rising upward to be an angel, depend on it, he is sinking downward to be a devil.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGERemorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEThe Eighth Commandment was not made for bards.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEHe who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGESome men are like musical glasses; to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEAs it must not, so genius cannot be lawless; for it is even that constitutes its genius – the power of acting creatively under laws of its own origination.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGENature 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.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEDay after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGENothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEMan is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:–for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEThe wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGENo man does anything from a single motive.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEIt is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGEThe love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE