Quotes By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks.

Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.

I 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.

Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never.

I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance.

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from.

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

What is a epigram? A dwarfish whole. Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

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

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

He 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.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged.

He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

And though thou notest from thy safe recess old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air love them for what they are; nor love them less, because to thee they are not what they were.

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

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

General principles... are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree are to its leaves.

Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.

Talk of the devil, and his horns appear.

Alas! they had been friends in youth; but whispering tongues can poison truth.

The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.

Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants.

Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.