114 quotes found
"It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. "By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?""
"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din."
"He holds him with his glittering eye — The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years child: The Mariner hath his will."
"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top."
"The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon."
"The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she."
"And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald."
"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!"
"At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name."
"( In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine."
""God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — Why look'st thou so?" — With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross."
"And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!"
"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."
"Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."
"Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."
"The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea."
"About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night."
"Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung."
"I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail!"
"Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel."
"Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold."
""The game is done! I've won, I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice."
"The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. Off shot the spectre-bark."
"We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip!"
"The hornèd Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip."
"One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye."
"I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand."
"Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony."
"The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I."
"An orphan's curse would drag to Hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is a curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die."
"The moving Moon went up the sky, And no where did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside."
"Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes."
"Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire."
"O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware."
"The self-same moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea."
"Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole."
"We were a ghastly crew."
"It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune."
"'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?' By him who died on the cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross"
"The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man That shot him with his bow."
"The man hath penance done, And penance more will do."
"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."
"Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree?"
"I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach."
"No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart."
"And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young."
"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row."
"So lonely 't was, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be."
"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast."
"He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."
"The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn."
"Not the poem which we have read, but that to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims the name of essential poetry."
"Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming."
"Experience informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate."
"Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born under happier stars. I cannot afford it."
"Milton had a highly imaginative, Cowley a very fanciful mind."
"An , in the highest sense of that word, cannot be conveyed but by a symbol; and, except in geometry, all symbols of necessity involve an apparent contradiction."
"Veracity does not consist in saying, but in the intention of communicating truth."
"I sought for a subject, that should give equal room and freedom for description, incident, and impassioned reflections on men, nature, and society, yet supply in itself a natural connection to the parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of Bent, to the first break or fall, where its drops became audible, and it begins to form a channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark squares as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated plot of ground; to the lonely cottage and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlet, the villages, the market-town, the manufactories, and the seaport. My walks therefore were almost daily on the top of Quantock, and among its sloping coombs."
"“Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.”"
"During the act of knowledge itself, the objective and subjective are so instantly united, that we cannot determine to which of the two the priority belongs."
"The primary I hold to be the living power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite ."
"The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate: or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead."
"The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of time and space."
"Our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination."
"That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
"The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of imagination."
"This power...reveals itself in the balance or reconcilement of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry."
"Our myriad-minded Shakspear."
"It has been before observed, that images however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves characterize the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion; or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's own spirit."
"No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher."
"Shakspeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton аs his compeer not rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion, the one Proteus of the fire and the flood; the other attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own . All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of ; while becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself."
"The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself."
"In poetry, in which every line, every phrase, may pass the ordeal of deliberation and deliberate choice, it is possible, and barely possible, to attain that ultimatum which I have ventured to propose as the infallible test of a blameless style; namely, its untranslatableness in words of the same language without injury to the meaning."
"And Coleridge too has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumbered with his hood, Explaining metaphysics to the nation. I wish he would explain his Explanation."
"The author of Biographia Literaria was already a ruined man. Sometimes, however, to be a ‘ruined man’ is itself a vocation."
"Schiller has the material sublime."
"Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from, — as pickpockets are observed commonly to walk with their hands in their breeches' pockets."
"Kean is original; but he copies from himself. His rapid descents from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough to play Othello."
"The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past; the Air and Heaven, of Futurity."
"Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so."
"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in the best order."
"The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, all hope of further amendment was lost."
"The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."
"Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a thought and a thing."
"Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be good sense at all events; just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house, at least."
"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."
"The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast."
"Shakespeare is the Spinosistic deity — an omnipresent creativeness. Milton is the deity of prescience; he stands ab extra, and drives a fiery chariot and four, making the horses feel the iron curb which holds them in. Shakspeare's poetry is characterless; that is, it does not reflect the individual Shakspeare; but John Milton himself is in every line of the Paradise Lost. Shakspeare's rhymed verses are excessively condensed, — epigrams with the point every where; but in his blank dramatic verse he is diffused, with a linked sweetness long drawn out."
"The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so."
"The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain."
"Party men always hate a slightly differing friend more than a downright enemy."
"Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar, in point of style."
"He told me that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute ground of, principles; to which I said, that unless he had a principle of selection, he would not have taken notice of those facts upon which he grounded his principle. You must have a lantern in your hand to give light, otherwise all the materials in the world are useless, for you cannot find them; and if you could, you could not arrange them."
"A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket: let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection; and trust more to your imagination than to your memory."
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!"
"The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous."
"In the treatment of nervous cases, he is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope."
"You talk about making this article cheaper by reducing its price in the market from 8 d. to 6 d. But suppose, in so doing, you have rendered your country weaker against a foreign foe; suppose you have demoralized thousands of your fellow-countrymen, and have sown discontent between one class of society and another, your article is tolerably dear, I take it, after all."
"The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable. It is no doubt a sublimer effort of genius than the Greek style; but then it depends much more on execution for its effect."
"I am glad you came in to punctuate my discourse, which I fear has gone on for an hour without any stop at all."
"The true key to the declension of the Roman empire — which is not to be found in all Gibbon's immense work — may be stated in two words: — the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation."
"Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants."
"I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit."
"Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is."
"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."
"Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast."
"I have known books written on Tolerance, the proper title of which would be — intolerant or intolerable books on tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly to inculcate tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least with indulgence, articles of faith which tens of thousands ten times told of his fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures believe with all their souls, and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in this world, and their hopes of salvation in the next, — those articles being at least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent in themselves?"
"I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. A person who should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning. I can take no interest whatever in hearing or saying any thing merely as a fact — merely as having happened. It must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. My mind is always energic — I don't mean energetic; I require in every thing what, for lack of another word, I may call propriety, — that is, a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another time."
"I take unceasing delight in Chaucer. His manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. How exquisitely tender he is, and yet how perfectly free from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping! The sympathy of the poet with the subjects of his poetry is particularly remarkable in Shakspeare and Chaucer; but what the first effects by a strong act of imagination and mental metamorphosis, the last does without any effort, merely by the inborn kindly joyousness of his nature. How well we seem to know Chaucer! How absolutely nothing do we know of Shakspeare!"
"Those who argue that England may safely depend upon a supply of foreign corn, if it grow none or an insufficient quantity of its own, forget that they are subjugating the necessaries of life itself to the mere luxuries or comforts of society. Is it not certain that the price of corn abroad will be raised upon us as soon as it is once known that we must buy?—and when that fact is known, in what sort of a situation shall we be?"
"No state can be such properly, which is not self-subsistent at least; for no state that is not so, is essentially independent. The nation that cannot even exist without the commodity of another nation, is in effect the slave of that other nation."
"I am dying, but without expectation of a speedy release. Is it not strange that very recently by-gone images, and scenes of early life, have stolen into my mind, like breezes blown from the spice-islands of Youth and Hope — those twin realities of this phantom world! I do not add Love, — for what is Love but Youth and Hope embracing, and so seen as one? I say realities; for reality is a thing of degrees, from the Iliad to a dream."