A nation to be great ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself. Samuel Taylor Coleridge More Quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge More Quotes From Samuel Taylor Coleridge The first man of science was he who looked into a thing, not to learn whether it furnished him with food, or shelter, or weapons, or tools, armaments, or playwiths but who sought to know it for the gratification of knowing. Samuel Taylor Coleridge tools knowing men The Eighth Commandment was not made for bards. Samuel Taylor Coleridge commandments bards made God is everywhere! the God who framed Samuel Taylor Coleridge god home father So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to thee. Samuel Taylor Coleridge flower sky sweet The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions. Samuel Taylor Coleridge heartfelt smile happiness Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing. Samuel Taylor Coleridge swans nature death In your intercourse with sects, the sublime and abstruse doctrines of Christian belief belong to the Church; but the faith of the individual, centred in his heart, is, or may be, collateral to them. Faith is subjective. Samuel Taylor Coleridge christian faith heart Memory, bosom-spring of joy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge spring joy memories A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge opposites men ideas The once red leaf, the last of its clan, that dances as often as dance it can. Samuel Taylor Coleridge red-leaves autumn ballet 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. Samuel Taylor Coleridge air love friendship Iambics march from short to long;-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge march poetry long Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Samuel Taylor Coleridge apples summer sweet A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks. Samuel Taylor Coleridge feelings birthday men There is no such thing as a worthless book though there are some far worse than worthless; no book that is not worth preserving, if its existence may be tolerated; as there may be some men whom it may be proper to hang, but none should be suffered to starve. Samuel Taylor Coleridge may men book Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are beasts,--the first and the wisest of beasts, it may be, but still true beasts. We shall only differ in degree and not in kind,--just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of the materialists of all the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as beasts, and this also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of the soul within us that makes the difference. Samuel Taylor Coleridge elephants differences school All Science is necessarily prophetic, so truly so, that the power of prophecy is the test, the infallible criterion, by which any presumed Science is ascertained to be actually & verily science. The Ptolemaic Astronomy was barely able to prognosticate a lunar eclipse; with Kepler and Newton came Science and Prophecy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge kepler tests science Come, come thou bleak December wind, Samuel Taylor Coleridge blow tree wind Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty. Samuel Taylor Coleridge nature wise heart May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping earth! Samuel Taylor Coleridge stars dwelling sleep