Swans sing before they die -- t'were no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing. Samuel Taylor Coleridge More Quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge More Quotes From Samuel Taylor Coleridge We ne'er can be Made happy by compulsion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge compulsionmadehappiness Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shows the greatness of man, and should at the same time teach him humility. Samuel Taylor Coleridge greatnesshumilityart Frenchmen are like gunpowder, each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed! Samuel Taylor Coleridge gunpowderfrancetogether Acquaintance many, and conquaintance few, But for inquaintance I know only two - The friend I've wept and the maid I woo. Samuel Taylor Coleridge maidsfriendshiptwo Shakespeare knew the human mind, and its most minute and intimate workings, and he never introduces a word, or a thought, in vain or out of place; if we do not understand him, it is our own fault. Samuel Taylor Coleridge introducingfaultsmind When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as mutually producing and explaining each other, as unity in multeity, there results shapeliness. Samuel Taylor Coleridge unityresultsform Laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so is there a laugh of terror and a laugh of merriment. Samuel Taylor Coleridge laughterexpressionlaughing That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense. Samuel Taylor Coleridge sublimecuttinghands Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company. Samuel Taylor Coleridge companylanguageuse Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Samuel Taylor Coleridge libertyskyblue Blest hour! It was a luxury--to be! Samuel Taylor Coleridge luxuryhours Iago's soliloquy - the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity - how awful it is! Samuel Taylor Coleridge huntingmotiveawful The more sparingly we make use of nonsense, the better. Samuel Taylor Coleridge nonsenseuse Pity is best taught by fellowship in woe. Samuel Taylor Coleridge woefellowshiptaught Ancestral voices prophesying war. Samuel Taylor Coleridge prophecyvoicewar No sound is dissonant which tells of life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge sound Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason. Samuel Taylor Coleridge sourcereasonwater If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil . He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse. Samuel Taylor Coleridge devilangelmen Remorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison. Samuel Taylor Coleridge tearshearttree Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:--for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action. Samuel Taylor Coleridge animalmenthinking
