99 Top Quotes From Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Founder Of The Romantic Movement
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a distinguished English philosopher, literary critic and a poet known for his Lyrical Ballads. The pioneer of modern ‘Romantic’ literature, he’s known for his innovative verses and influential thinking. Actively preaching during the French Revolution, this recalcitrant pamphleteer reawakened progressive ideas of middle class men and inspired a new generation of writers like Emerson to develop outstanding meditative, speculative and oracular pieces. He was a constant companion of William Wordsworth, a founder of Romanticism and a well-known member of ‘Lake Poets’. His exemplary works include 8 poems like Kubla Khan, The Rime of Ancient Mariner, critical analysis of Shakespeare’s work and Biographia Literaria, the renowned prose. Coleridge, who coined a series of terminology like the ‘suspension of disbelief’ was the mastermind behind amalgamating English oration with German idealist philosophy. He inspired American transcendentalism during his younger years. Adulthood was harsh to Samuel, who lost his creative mind to bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety, ultimately developing rheumatic fever. It finally got him addicted to opium and he died at 61. His long poems and editorials are compiled under a collective series ‘The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’ available in 16 volumes. He inspired many by his thoughts and beliefs. We have excerpted his quotes from some of his writings, lectures and life. Here is a collection of some profound quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Silence does not always mark wisdom.
Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.
Poetry: the best words in the best order.
Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
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.
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor.
Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.
He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.
He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.
Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.
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.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
A great mind must be androgynous.
Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.
Nothing 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.
Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.
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.
Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.
No mind is thoroughly well-organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.
I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance.
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.
Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation
What comes from the heart goes to the heart
The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.
The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, And the forrow followed free. We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea.
Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.
Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.
