Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shall thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and al things in himselfGreat universal teacher! He shall moldThy spirit and by giving , make it ask.”

“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.”

“To be loved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.”

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

“Water, water, everywhere,And all the boards did shrink;Water, water, everywhere,Nor any drop to drink.”

“Good and bad men are less than they seem.”

“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.”

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

“Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind.”

“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.”

“No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.”

“A man may devote himself to death and destruction to save a nation; but no nation will devote itself to death and destruction to save mankind.”

“Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.”

“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.”

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame All are but ministers of Love And feed His sacred flame.”

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

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

“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.”

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

“How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them.”