Quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

About Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence on Emerson and American transcendentalism.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A man's desire is for the woman, but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

No one does anything from a single motive.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Men, I still think, ought to be weighed, not counted. Their worth ought to be the final estimate of their value.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On Pilgrim's Progress: “I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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 awake, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread. For he on honey-dew hath fed. And drunk the milk of paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In nature there is nothing melancholy

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He was, as every truly great poet has ever been, a good man; but finding it impossible to realize his own aspirations, either in religion or politics, or society, he gave up his heart to the living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on ...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are one, Security to possessors; two, facility to acquirers; and three, hope to all.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Author Bio

  • NameSamuel Taylor Coleridge
  • DescriptionEnglish poet, literary critic and philosopher
  • AliasesS. T. Coleridge
  • BornOctober 21, 1772
  • DiedJuly 25, 1834
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionPoet; Philosopher; Theologian; Writer
  • WorksThe Rime Of The Ancient Mariner