Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He, who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in order to distinguish; but it is a still worse, that distinguishes in order to divide. In the former, we may contemplate the source of superstition and idolatry; in the latter of schism, …

Truths … are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.

In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their …

There is one art, of which every man should be master, the art of . If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all? In like manner, there is one knowledge, which it is in every man's interest and duty to acquire, …

The heart should have fed upon the truth, as insects on a leaf, till it be tinged with the color, and show its food in every ... minutest fiber.

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into …

It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.

The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant, when he has the Giant's shoulders to mount on.

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries, with spire-steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and star.

A mother is a mother still; The holiest thing alive.

Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud To rise before me — Rise, oh, ever rise; Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou …

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element! Utter forth ' God,' and fill the hills with praise!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost.

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars.

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy. Awake, Voice of sweet song! awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer, I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines.

Around thee and above, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, О sovran Blanc!

Often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.

Clothing the palpable and the familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn.