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I Have Often Been Surprised That Mathematics, The Quintessence Of Truth, Should Have Found Admirers So Few And So Languid. Frequent Consideration And Minute Scrutiny Have At Length Unravelled The Cause: Viz . That Though Reason Is Feasted, Imagination Is Starved; Whilst Reason Is Luxuriating In Its Proper Paradise, Imagination Is Wearily Travelling On A Dreary Desert.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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I Have Often Been

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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I Have Often Been Surprised That Mathematics, The Quintessence Of Truth, Should Have Found Admirers So Few And So Languid. Frequent Consideration And Minute Scrutiny Have At Length Unravelled The Cause: Viz . That Though Reason Is Feasted, Imagination Is Starved; Whilst Reason Is Luxuriating In Its Proper Paradise, Imagination Is Wearily Travelling On A Dreary Desert.

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Ignorance Seldom Vaults Into Knowledge, But Passes Into It Through An Intermediate State Of Obscurity, Even As Night Into Day Through Twilight.

All Men, Even The Most Surly Are Influenced By Affection.

Women Have Their Heads In Their Hearts. Man Seems To Have Been Destined For A Superior Being; As Things Are, I Think Women Generally Better Creatures Than Men. They Have Weaker Appetites And Weaker Intellects But Much Stronger Affections. A Man With A Bad Heart Has Been Sometimes Saved By A Strong Head; But A Corrupt Woman Is Lost Forever.

How Wonderfully Beautiful Is The Delineation Of The Characters Of The Three Patriarchs In Genesis! To Be Sure If Ever Man Could, Without Impropriety, Be Called, Or Supposed To Be, "the Friend Of God," Abraham Was That Man. We Are Not Surprised That Abimelech And Ephron Seem To Reverence Him So Profoundly. He Was Peaceful, Because Of His Conscious Relation To God.

Bells, The Poor Man's Only Music.

When Thieves Come, I Bark; When Gallants, I Am Still - So Perform Both My Master's And Mistress's Will.

History Has A Point Of View; It Cannot Be All Things To All People.

Advice Is Like Snow - The Softer It Falls, The Longer It Dwells Upon, And The Deeper In Sinks Into The Mind.

Genius Of The Highest Kind Implies An Unusual Intensity Of The Modifying Power.

And In Life's Noisiest Hour, There Whispers Still The Ceaseless Love Of Thee, The Heart's Self-solace And Soliloquy. You Mould My Hopes, You Fashion Me Within.

...from The Time Of Kepler To That Of Newton, And From Newton To Hartley, Not Only All Things In External Nature, But The Subtlest Mysteries Of Life And Organization, And Even Of The Intellect And Moral Being, Were Conjured Within The Magic Circle Of Mathematical Formulae.

So Lonely 'twas That God Himself Scarce Seemed There To Be.

Therefore All Seasons Shall Be Sweet To Thee, Whether The Summer Clothe The General Earth With Greenness, Or The Redbreast Sit And Sing Betwixt The Tufts Of Snow On The Bare Branch Of Mossy Apple Tree.

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 The Imagination Than The Memory.

When A Man Mistakes His Thoughts For Persons And Things, He Is Mad.

Nature Has Her Proper Interest; And He Will Know What It Is, Who Believes And Feels, That Every Thing Has A Life Of Its Own, And That We Are All One Life.

Clergymen Who Publish Pious Frauds In The Interest Of The Church Are The Orthodox Liars Of God.

The Fancy Is Indeed No Other Than A Mode Of Memory Emancipated From The Order Of Time And Space.

Never Pursue Literature As A Trade.

Democracy Is The Healthful Lifeblood Which Circulates Through The Veins And Arteries, Which Supports The System, But Which Ought Never To Appear Externally, And As The Mere Blood Itself.

I Know The Bible Is Inspired Because It Finds Me At Greater Depths Of My Being Than Any Other Book.

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.

The Rules Of Prudence, Like The Laws Of The Stone Tables, Are For The Most Part Prohibitive. "thou Shalt Not" Is Their Characteristic Formula.

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.

You See How This House Of Commons Has Begun To Verify All The Ill Prophecies That Were Made Of It - Low, Vulgar, Meddling With Everything, Assuming Universal Competency, And Flattering Every Base Passion - And Sneering At Everything Noble Refined And Truly National. The Direct Tyranny Will Come On By And By, After It Shall Have Gratified The Multitude With The Spoil And Ruin Of The Old Institutions Of The Land.

Religion Is The Most Gentlemanly Thing In The World. It Alone Will Gentilize, If Unmixed With Cant.

To Be Beloved Is All I Need, And Whom I Love, I Love Indeed.

Often Do The Spirits Stride On Before The Event; And In Today Already Walks Tomorrow.

It Is The Duty Of The Judge In Criminal Trials To Take Care That The Verdict Of The Jury Is Not Founded Upon Any Evidence Except That Which The Law Allows.

The Misery Of Human Life Is Made Up Of Large Masses, Each Separated From The Other By Certain Intervals. One Year The Death Of A Child; Years After, A Failure In Trade; After Another Longer Or Shorter Interval, A Daughter May Have Married Unhappily; In All But The Singularly Unfortunate, The Integral Parts That Compose The Sum-total Of The Unhappiness Of A Man's Life Are Easily Counted And Distinctly Remembered.

To Know, To Esteem, To Love,-and Then To Part, Makes Up Life's Tale To Many A Feeling Heart.

Talk Of The Devil, And His Horns Appear.

The Three Great Ends Which A Statesman Ought To Propose To Himself In The Government Of A Nation Are, — 1. Security To Possessors; 2. Facility To Acquirers; And 3. Hope To All.

I Must Lay Down The Law As I Understand It, And As I Read It In Books Of Authority.

Never Can True Courage Dwell With Them, Who, Playing Tricks With Conscience, Dare Not Look At Their Own Vices.

The Artist Must Imitate That Which Is Within The Thing, That Which Is Active Through Form And Figure, And Discourses To Us By Symbols.

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 Words In Prose Ought To Express The Intended Meaning, And No More; If They Attract Attention To Themselves, It Is, In General, A Fault.

In Many Ways Doth The Full Heart Reveal The Presence Of The Love It Would Conceal.

Thou Rising Sun! Thou Blue Rejoicing Sky! Yea! Every Thing That Is And Will Be Free! Bear Witness For Me, Whereso'er Ye Be, With What Deep Worship I Have Still Adored The Spirit Of Divinest Liberty.

Veracity Does Not Consist In Saying, But In The Intention Of Communicating The Truth.

Nor Dim Nor Red, Like God's Own Head, The Glorious Sun Uprist

Poetry: The Best Words In The Best Order.

The Form Of Truth Will Bear Exposure, As Well As That Of Beauty Herself.

There Is Nothing Insignificant-nothing.

In Xanadu Did Kubla Khan A Stately Pleasure-dome Decree: Where Alph, The Sacred River, Ran Through Caverns Measureless To Man Down To A Sunless Sea.

How Many Of Our Virtues Originate In The Fear Of Death & That While We Flatter Ourselves That We Are Melting In Christian Sensibility Over The Sorrows Of Our Human Brethren And Sisteren, We Are In Fact, Tho' Perhaps Unconsciously, Moved At The Prospect Of Our Own End For Who Sincerely Pities Sea-sickness, Toothache, Or A Fit Of The Gout In A Lusty Good-liver Of 50?

As Long As There Are Readers To Be Delighted With Calumny, There Will Be Found Reviewers To Calumniate.

The Eighth Commandment Was Not Made For Bards.

Ah! From The Soul Itself Must Issue Forth A Light, A Glory, A Fair Luminous Cloud Enveloping The Earth And From The Soul Itself Must There Be Sent A Sweet And Potent Voice, Of Its Own Birth Of All Sweet Sounds The Life And Element!

I May Not Hope From Outward Forms To Win / The Passion And The Life, Whose Fountains Are Within.

Life Went A-maying With Nature, Hope, And Poesy, When I Was Young!

O Lady! We Receive But What We Give And In Our Life Alone Does Nature Live.

Intellect Really Exists In Its Products; Its Kingdom Is Here.

O It Is Pleasant, With A Heart At Ease, Just After Sunset, Or By Moonlight Skies, To Make The Shifting Clouds Be What You Please.

This World Has Angels All Too Few, And Heaven Is Overflowing.

The First Duty Of A Wise Advocate Is To Convince His Opponents That He Understands Their Arguments, And Sympathies With Their Just Feelings.

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.

Memory, Bosom-spring Of Joy.

To Believe And To Understand Are Not Diverse Things, But The Same Things In Different Periods Of Growth.

Milton Has Carefully Marked In His Satan The Intense Selfishness, The Alcohol Of Egotism, Which Would Rather Reign In Hell Than Serve In Heaven.

The Language Of The Dream/night Is Contrary To That Of Waking/day. It Is A Language Of Images And Sensations, The Various Dialects Of Which Are Far Less Different From Each Other, Than The Various Day-languages Of Nations.

Water, Water, Everywhere, And All The Boards Did Shrink; Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink.

The Once Red Leaf, The Last Of Its Clan, That Dances As Often As Dance It Can.

Be Not Merely A Man Of Letters! Let Literature Be An Honorable Augmentations To Your Arms, Not Constitute The Coat Or Fill The Escutcheon!

Great Old Books Of The Great Old Authors Are Not In Everybody's Reach; And Though It Is Better To Know Them Thoroughly Than To Know Them Only Here And There, Yet It Is A Good Work To Give A Little To Those Who Have Neither Time Nor Means To Get His Own Belief.

There Is In Every Human Countenance Either A History Or A Prophecy Which Must Sadden, Or At Least Soften Every Reflecting Observer.

The Love Of Indolence Is Universal, Or Next To It.

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.

It Is A Flat'ning Thought, That The More We Have Seen, The Less We Have To Say.

On The Greek Stage A Drama, Or Acted Story, Consisted In Reality Of Three Dramas, Called Together A Trilogy, And Performed Consecutively In The Course Of One Day.

Boys And Girls, And Women, That Would Groan To See A Child Pull Off An Insect's Leg, All Read Of War, The Best Amusement For Our Morning Meal.

The History Of All The World Tells Us That Immoral Means Will Ever Intercept Good Ends.

He Went Like One That Hath Been Stunn'd, And Is Of Sense Forlorn: A Sadder And A Wiser Man He Rose The Morrow Morn.

Carved With Figures Strange And Sweet, All Made Out Of The Carver's Brain.

Facts Are Not Truths; They Are Not Conclusions; They Are Not Even Premises, But In The Nature And Parts Of Premises.

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.

The Intelligible Forms Of Ancient Poets, The Fair Humanities Of Old Religion, The Power, The Beauty, And The Majesty That Had Their Haunts In Dale Or Piny Mountain, Or Forest By Slow Stream, Or Pebbly Spring, Or Chasms And Watery Depths, All These Have Vanished; They Live No Longer In The Faith Of Reason.

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!

Day After Day, Day After Day, We Stuck, Nor Breath Nor Motion; As Idle As A Painted Ship Upon A Painted Ocean.

The Blue And Bright-eyed Floweret Of The Brook, Hope's Gentle Gem, The Sweet Forget-me-not.

The Principle Of The Gothic Architecture Is Infinity Made Imaginable.

How Strange And Awful Is The Synthesis Of Life And Death In The Gusty Winds And Falling Leaves Of An Autumnal Day!

And To Be Wroth With One We Love…doth Work Like Madness In The Brain.

Greatness And Goodness Are Not Means, But Ends! Hath He Not Always Treasures, Always Friends, The Good Great Man? Three Treasures, Love And Light, And Calm Thoughts, Regular As Infants' Breath; And Three Firm Friends, More Sure Than Day And Night, Himself, His Maker, And The Angel Death.

Wherever You Find A Sentence Musically Worded, Of True Rhythm And Melody In The Words, There Is Something Deep And Good In The Meaning Too.

The Many Men, So Beautiful! And They All Dead Did Lie: And A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things Lived On; And So Did I.

Of No Agenor Of Any Religion, Or Party Or Profession. The Body And Substance Of His Works Came Out Of The Unfathomable Depths Of His Own Oceanic Mind.

If A Man Is Not Rising Upward To Be An Angel, Depend On It, He Is Sinking Downward To Be A Devil.

Our Quaint Metaphysical Opinions, In An Hour Of Anguish, Are Like Playthings By The Bedside Of A Child Deathly Sick.

My Eyes Make Pictures When They Are Shut.

A Mother Is A Mother Still, The Holiest Thing Alive.

Falsehood Is Fire In Stubble; It Likewise Turns All The Light Stuff Around It Into Its Own Substance For A Moment, One Crackling Blazing Moment, And Then Dies; And All Its Converts Are Scattered In The Wind, Without Place Or Evidence Of Their Existence, As Viewless As The Wind Which Scatters Them.

The Author Of Biographia Literaria Was Already A Ruined Man. Sometimes, However, To Be A "ruined Man" Is Itself A Vocation.

Plagiarists Are Always Suspicious Of Being Stolen From.

Mr. Lyell's System Of Geology Is Just Half The Truth, And No More. He Affirms A Great Deal That Is True, And He Denies A Great Deal Which Is Equally True; Which Is The General Characteristic Of All Systems Not Embracing The Whole Truth.

Rage Is Essentially Vulgar.

I Love Being Superior To Myself Better Than [to] My Equals.

Ignorance Seldom Vaults Into Knowledge.

In Shakespeare One Sentence Begets The Next Naturally; The Meaning Is All Inwoven. He Goes On Kindling Like A Meteor Through The Dark Atmosphere.

Language Is The Armory Of The Human Mind, And At Once Contains The Trophies Of Its Past And The Weapons Of Its Future Conquests.

Men Of Humor Are Always In Some Degree Men Of Genius; Wits Are Rarely So, Although A Man Of Genius May, Amongst Other Gifts, Possess Wit, As Shakespeare.

Whenever Philosophy Has Taken Into Its Plan Religion, It Has Ended In Skepticism; And Whenever Religion Excludes Philosophy, Or The Spirit Of Free Inquiry, It Leads To Willful Blindness And Superstition.

A Maxim Is A Conclusion Upon Observation Of Matters Of Fact, And Is Merely Speculative; A "principle" Carries Knowledge Within Itself, And Is Prospective.

Experience Informs Us That The First Defence Of Weak Minds Is To Recriminate.

That Gracious Thing, Made Up Of Tears And Light.

Mr. Mum's Rudesheimer And The Church Of St. Geryon Are The Two Things Alone That Deserve To Be Known In The Body-and-soul-stinking Town Of Cologne.

Why Aren't More Gems From Our Great Authors Scattered Over The Country? Great Books Aren't Within Everybody's Reach.

And All Who Heard Should See Them There, And All Should Cry, Beware! Beware! His Flashing Eyes, His Floating Hair! Weave A Circle Round Him Thrice, And Close Your Eyes With Holy Dread, For He On Honey-dew Hath Fed, And Drunk The Milk Of Paradise.

The Spirit Of Poetry, Like All Other Living Powers, Must Of Necessity Circumscribe Itself By Rules, Were It Only To Unite Power With Beauty.

But Oh! Each Visitation Suspends What Nature Gave Me Any My Birth, My Shaping Spirit Of Imagination.

Water Cannot Rise Higher Than Its Source, Neither Can Human Reason.

I Attended [sir Humphry] Davy's Lectures To Renew My Stock Of Metaphors.

Humor Is Consistent With Pathos, Whilst Wit Is Not.

Friends Should Be Weighed, Not Told; Who Boasts To Have Won A Multitude Of Friends Has Never Had One.

O Pure Of Heart! Thou Needest Not Ask Of Me What This Strong Music In The Soul May Be!

General Principles... Are To The Facts As The Root And Sap Of A Tree To Its Leaves.

Enlist The Interests Of Stern Morality And Religious Enthusiasm In The Cause Of Political Liberty, As In The Time Of The Old Puritans, And It Will Be Irresistible.

The Book Of Job Is Pure Arab Poetry Of The Highest And Most Antique Cast.

I Am Sure From My Experience Of Juries That, In A Criminal Case Especially, They Will Obey The Law As Declared By The Judge; They Will Take The Law From The Judge, Whether They Like It Or Do Not Like It, And Apply It Honestly To The Facts Before Them.

The First Great Requisite Is Absolute Sincerity. Falsehood And Disguise Are Miseries And Misery-makers.

Love Is The Admiration And Cherishing Of The Amiable Qualities Of The Beloved Person, Upon The Condition Of Yourself Being The Object Of Their Action.

For Mother's Sake The Child Was Dear, And Dearer Was The Mother For The Child.

Not One Man In A Thousand Has Either Strength Of Mind Or Goodness Of Heart To Be An Atheist. I Repeat It. Not One Man In A Thousand Has Either Strength Of Mind Or Goodness Of Heart To Be An Atheist.

Where True Love Burns Desire Is Love's Pure Flame; It Is The Reflex Of Our Earthly Frame, That Takes Its Meaning From The Nobler Part, And But Translates The Language Of The Heart.

The One Red Leaf, The Last Of Its Clan, That Dances As Often As Dance It Can, Hanging So Light, And Hanging So High, On The Topmost Twig That Looks Up At The Sky.

Until You Understand A Writer's Ignorance, Presume Yourself Ignorant Of His Understanding.

The Fastidious Taste Will Find Offence In The Occasional Vulgarisms, Or What We Now Call Slang, Which Not A Few Of Our Writers Seem To Have Affected.

A Falsehood Is, In One Sense, A Dead Thing; But Too Often It Moves About, Galvanized By Self-will, And Pushes The Living Out Of Their Seats.

I Have Found Words [in The Bible] For My Inmost Thoughts, Songs For My Joy, Utterances For My Hidden Griefs, And Pleadings For My Shame And My Feebleness.

We Ought Not To Extract Pernicious Honey From Poison Blossoms Of Misrepresentation And Mendacious Half-truth, To Pamper The Course Appetite Of Bigotry And Self-love.

I Stood In Unimaginable Trance And Agony That Cannot Be Remembered.

Flowers Are Lovely; Love Is Flower-like; Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree; Oh The Joys That Came Down Shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, And Liberty, Ere I Was Old!

Swiftly, Swiftly Flew The Ship, Yet She Sailed Softly Too: Sweetly, Sweetly Blew The Breeze - On Me Alone It Blew.

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.

Alas! They Had Been Friends In Youth; But Whispering Tongues Can Poison Truth.

He Who Is Best Prepared Can Best Serve His Moment Of Inspiration.

Inspirational Life

Finally, Good Sense Is The Body Of Poetic Genius, Fancy Its Drapery, Motion Its Life, And Imagination The Soul That Is Everywhere And In Each; And Forms All Into One Graceful And Intelligent Whole.

The Happiness Of Life Is Made Up Of Minute Fractions - The Little, Soon Forgotten Charities Of A Kiss Or A Smile, A Kind Look Or Heartfelt Compliment.

There Is One Art Of Which People Should Be Masters - The Art Of Reflection.

To Most Men Experience Is Like The Stern Lights Of A Ship, Which Illuminate Only The Track It Has Passed.

Creation Rather Than Painting, Or If Painting, Yet Such, And With Such Co-presence Of The Whole Picture Flash'd At Once Upon The Eye, As The Sun Paints In A Camera Obscura. (describing His Poetic Ideal, 1817)

Plagiarists Are Always Suspicious Of Being Stolen From, As Pickpockets Are Observed Commonly To Walk With Their Hands In Their Breeches' Pockets.

People Of Humor Are Always In Some Degree People Of Genius.

As A Man Without Forethought Scarcely Deserves The Name Of A Man, So Forethought Without Reflection Is But A Metaphorical Phrase For The Instinct Of A Beast.

Men Of Genius Are Rarely Much Annoyed By The Company Of Vulgar People, Because They Have A Power Of Looking At Such Persons As Objects Of Amusement Of Another Race Altogether.

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 .

No Voice; But Oh - The Silence Sank Like Music On My Heart.

An Undevout Poet Is An Impossibility.

A Noise Like Of A Hidden Brook In The Leafy Month Of June, That To The Sleeping Woods All Night Singeth A Quiet Tune.

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.

For Compassion A Human Heart Suffices, But For Full And Adequate Sympathy, With Joy, An Angel's Only.

Fellows Of Colleges In The Universities Are In One Sense The Recipients Of Alms, Because They Receive Funds Which Originally Were Of An Eleemosynary Character.

That Only Can With Propriety Be Styled Refinement Which, By Strengthening The Intellect, Purifies The Manners.

The Doing Evil To Avoid An Evil Cannot Be Good.

And Looking To The Heaven, That Bends Above You, How Oft! I Bless The Lot, That Made Me Love You.

I Look'd To Heav'n, And Try'd To Pray; But Or Ever A Prayer Had Gusht, A Wicked Whisper Came And Made My Heart As Dry As Dust.

The Bride Hath Paced Into The Hall, Red As A Rose Is She.

The More Sparingly We Make Use Of Nonsense, The Better.

All Powerful Souls Have Kindred With Each Other

God Grant Me Grace My Prayers To Say: O God! Preserve My Mother Dear, In Strength And Health For Many A Year; And O! Preserve My Father Too, And May I Pay Him Reverence Due; And May I My Best Thoughts Employ To Be My Parents' Hope And Joy; And O! Preserve My Brothers Both From Evil Doings, And From Sloth, And May We Always Love Each Other, Our Friends, Our Father, And Our Mother, And Still, O Lord, To Me Impart An Innocent And Grateful Heart, That After My Last Sleep I May Awake To Thy Eternal Day! Amen.

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 Breeze By 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.

It Is A Gentle And Affectionate Thought, That In Immeasurable Height Above Us, At Our First Birth, The Wreath Of Love Was Woven With Sparkling Stars For Flowers.

The Beautiful Arises From The Perceived Harmony Of An Object, Whether Sight Or Sound, With The Inborn And Constitutive Rules Of The Judgment And Imagination: And It Is Always Intuitive.

Sympathy Constitutes Friendship; But In Love There Is A Sort Of Antipathy, Or Opposing Passion. Each Strives To Be The Other, And Both Together Make Up One Whole.

Swans Sing Before They Die - 'twere No Bad Thing Should Certain Persons Die Before They Sing.

The Necessity For External Government To Man Is In An Inverse Ratio To The Vigor Of His Self-government. Where The Last Is Most Complete, The First Is Least Wanted. Hence, The More Virtue The More Liberty.

Heart-chilling Superstition! Thou Canst Glaze Even Pity's Eye With Her Own Frozen Tear.

A Stately Pleasure-dome Decree.

To See Him Act Is Like Reading Shakespeare By Flashes Of Lightning.

The Man Hath Penance Done, And Penance More Will Do.

Death But Supplies The Oil For The Inextinguishable Lamp Of Life.

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.

It Is Saying Less Than The Truth To Affirm That An Excellent Book (and The Remark Holds Almost Equally Good Of A Raphael As Of A Milton) Is Like A Well-chosen And Well-tended Fruit Tree. Its Fruits Are Not Of One Season Only. With The Due And Natural Intervals, We May Recur To It Year After Year, And It Will Supply The Same Nourishment And The Same Gratification, If Only We Ourselves Return To It With The Same Healthful Appetite.

Everyone Should Have Two Or Three Hives Of Bees. Bees Are Easier To Keep Than A Dog Or A Cat. They Are More Interesting Than Gerbils.

O Let Me Be Awake, My God! Or Let Me Sleep Alway.

A Rogue Is A Roundabout Fool.

All Nature Seems At Work. Slugs Leave Their Lair The Bees Are Stirring, Birds Are On The Wing, And Winter Slumbering In The Open Air, Wears On His Smiling Face A Dream Of Spring.

Nothing Is As Contagious As Enthusiasm. It Is The Real Allegory Of The Myth Of Orpheus; It Moves Stones, And Charms Brutes. It Is The Genius Of Sincerity, And Truth Accomplishes No Victories Without It.

It Cannot But Be Injurious To The Human Mind Never To Be Called Into Effort: The Habit Of Receiving Pleasure Without Any Exertion Of Thought, By The Mere Excitement Of Curiosity, And Sensibility, May Be Justly Ranked Among The Worst Effects Of Habitual Novel-reading.

In Politics, What Begins In Fear Usually Ends In Folly.

The Earth With Its Scarred Face Is The Symbol Of The Past; The Air And Heaven, Of Futurity.

You May Depend Upon It, Religion Is, In Its Essence, The Most Gentlemanly Thing In The World. It Will Alone Gentilize, If Unmixed With Cant; And I Know Nothing Else That Will, Alone. Certainly Not The Army, Which Is Thought To Be The Grand Embellisher Of Manners.

May All The Stars Hang Bright Above Her Dwelling, Silent As Though They Watched The Sleeping Earth!

The Imagination ... That Reconciling And Mediatory Power, Which Incorporating The Reason In Images Of The Sense And Organizing (as It Were) The Flux Of The Senses By The Permanence And Self-circling Energies Of The Reason, Gives Birth To A System Of Symbols, Harmonious In Themselves, And Consubstantial With The Truths Of Which They Are The Conductors.

In The Deepest Night Of Trouble And Sorrow God Gives Us So Much To Be Thankful For That We Need Never Cease Our Singing. With All Our Wisdom And Foresight We Can Take A Lesson In Gladness And Gratitude From The Happy Bird That Sings All Night, As If The Day Were Not Long Enough To Tell Its Joy.

Trochee Trips From Long To Short; From Long To Long In Solemn Sort Slow Spondee Stalks.

Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree.

If A Man Could Pass Through Paradise In A Dream, And Have A Flower Presented To Him As A Pledge That His Soul Had Really Been There, And If He Found That Flower In His Hand When He Awake - Aye, What Then?

A Wild Rose Roofs The Ruined Shed, And That And Summer Well Agree.

The Age Seems Sore From Excess Of Stimulation, Just As A Day Or Two After A Thorough Debauch And Long Sustained Drinking-match A Man Feels All Over Like A Bruise. Even To Admire Otherwise Than On The Whole And Where "i Admire" Is But A Synonyme For "i Remember, I Liked It Very Much When I Was Reading It ," Is Too Much An Effort, Would Be Too Disquieting An Emotion!

For More Than A Thousand Years The Bible, Collectively Taken, Has Gone Hand In Hand With Civilization Science, Law; In Short, With The Moral And Intellectual Cultivation Of The Species, Always Supporting And Often Leading He Way.

A Court Has No Right To Strain The Law Because It Causes Hardship.

For She Belike Hath Drunken Deep Of All The Blessedness Of Sleep.

What! Did Sir W[alter] R[aleigh] Believe That A Male And Female Ounce (and, If So, Why Not Two Tigers And Lions, Etc?) Would Have Produced, In A Course Of Generations, A Cat, Or A Cat A Lion? This Is Darwinizing With A Vengeance.

The Primary Imagination 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 I Am.

Chance Is But The Pseudonym Of God For Those Particular Cases, Which He Does Not Choose To Acknowledge Openly With His Own Sign Manual.

Conscience Is The Pulse Of Reason

Fear Gives Sudden Instincts Of Skill.

And The Devil Did Grin, For His Darling Sin Is Pride That Apes Humility.

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