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The Form Is Mechanic When On Any Given Material We Impress A Predetermined Form. The Organic Form, On The Other Hand, Is Innate, It Shapes As It Develops Itself From Within.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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The Form Is Mechanic

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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The Form Is Mechanic When On Any Given Material We Impress A Predetermined Form. The Organic Form, On The Other Hand, Is Innate, It Shapes As It Develops Itself From Within.

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A Stately Pleasure-dome Decree.

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.

No Man Does Anything From A Single Motive.

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!

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.

I Have Often Thought What A Melancholy World This Would Be Without Children, And What An Inhuman World Without The Aged.

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

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.

Good And Bad Men Are Each Less So Than They Seem.

Nature Is A Wary Wily Long-breathed Old Witch, Tough-lived As A Turtle And Divisible As The Polyp, Repullulative In A Thousand Snips And Cuttings, Integra Et In Toto! She Is Sure To Get The Better Of Lady Mind In The Long Run, And To Take Her Revenge Too Transforms Our To Day Into A Canvass Dead-colored To Receive The Dull Featureless Portait Of Yesterday.

A Woman's Friendship Borders More Closely On Love Than Man's. Men Affect Each Other In The Reflection Of Noble Or Friendly Acts; Whilst Women Ask Fewer Proofs And More Signs And Expressions Of Attachment.

Pedantry Consists In The Use Of Words Unsuitable To The Time, Place, And Company.

Ah! Well A-day! What Evil Looks / Had I From Old And Young! / Instead Of The Cross, The Albatross / About My Neck Was Hung.

Tranquillity! Thou Better Name Than All The Family Of Fame.

Perhaps 'tis Pretty To Force Together Thoughts So All Unlike Each Other; To Mutter And Mock A Broken Charm, To Dally With Wrong That Does No Harm.

The Sense Of Beauty Is Intuitive, And Beauty Itself Is All That Inspires Pleasure Without, And Aloof From, And Even Contrarily To Interest.

The Juggle Of Sophistry Consists, For The Most Part, In Using A Word In One Sense In All The Premises, And In Another Sense In The Conclusion.

Frenchmen Are Like Gunpowder, Each By Itself Smutty And Contemptible, But Mass Them Together And They Are Terrible Indeed!

What Comes From The Heart Goes To The Heart

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

You Do Not Believe, You Only Believe That You Believe.

Imagination Is The Living Power And Prime Agent Of All Human Perception.

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.

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

Oh Sleep! It Is A Gentle Thing, Beloved From Pole To Pole, To Mary Queen The Praise Be Given! She Sent The Gentle Sleep From Heaven, That Slid Into My Soul.

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.

Work Without Hope Draws Nectar In A Sieve, And Hope Without An Object Cannot Live.

Forth From His Dark And Lonely Hiding-place, (portentous Sight!) The Owlet Atheism, Sailing On Obscene Wings Athwart The Noon, Drops His Blue-fringed Lids, And Holds Them Close, And Hooting At The Glorious Sun In Heaven, Cries Out, ''where Is It?''

Let Every Book-worm, When In Any Fragrant, Scarce Old Tome, He Discovers A Sentence, A Story, An Illustration, That Does His Heart Good, Hasten To Give It The Widest Circulation That Newspapers And Magazines, Penny And Halfpenny, Can Afford.

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

A Religion, That Is, A True Religion, Must Consist Of Ideas And Facts Both; Not Of Ideas Alone Without Facts, For Then It Would Be Mere Philosophy; - Nor Of Facts Alone Without Ideas, Of Which Those Facts Are Symbols, Or Out Of Which They Arise, Or Upon Which They Are Grounded: For Then It Would Be Mere History.

Pity Is Best Taught By Fellowship In Woe.

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

We Should Manage Our Thoughts As Shepherds Do Their Flowers In Making A Garland: First, Select The Choicest, And Then Dispose Them In The Most Proper Places, That Every One May Reflect A Part Of Its Color And Brightness On The Next.

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

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.

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

But Metre Itself Implies A Passion , I.e. A State Of Excitement, Both In The Poet's Mind, & Is Expected In That Of The Reader.

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

We Must Not Be Guilty Of Taking The Law Into Our Own Hands, And Converting It From What It Really Is To What We Think It Ought To Be.

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

Novels Are To Love As Fairy Tales To Dreams.

Christianity Is Not A Theory Or Speculation, But A Life; Not A Philosophy Of Life, But A Life And A Living Process.

The Jews Would Not Willingly Tread Upon The Smallest Piece Of Paper In Their Way, But Took It Up; For Possibly, They Say, The Name Of God May Be On It. Though There Was A Little Superstition In This, Yet Truly There Is Nothing But Good Religion In It, If We Apply It To Men. Trample Not On Any; There May Be Some Work Of Grace There, That Thou Knowest Not Of. The Name Of God May Be Written Upon That Soul Thou Treadest On; It May Be A Soul That Christ Thought So Much Of, As To Give His Precious Blood For It; Therefore Despise It Not.

Her Skin Was White As Leprosy.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

No Mind Is Thoroughly Well Organized That Is Deficient In A Sense Of Humor.

Remorse Weeps Tears Of Blood.

Guilt Is A Timorous Thing Ere Perpetration; Despair Alone Makes Guilty Men Be Bold.

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

He Who Begins By Loving Christianity More Than Truth, Will Proceed By Loving His Sect Or Church Better Than Christianity, And End In Loving Himself Better Than All.

How Like Herrings And Onions Our Vices Are In The Morning After We Have Committed Them.

With No Other Privilege Than That Of Sympathy And Sincere Good Wishes, I Would Address An Affectionate Exhortation To The Youthful Literati, Grounded On My Own Experience. It Will Be But Short; For The Beginning, Middle, And End Converge To One Charge: Never Pursue Literature As A Trade.

Beginning Middle And End

Bells, The Poor Man's Only Music.

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

He Holds Him With His Glittering Eye, And Listens Like A Three Years' Child.

Conscience Is The Pulse Of Reason

It Has Been Observed Before 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 Spirit.

Sublimity Is Hebrew By Birth.

Acquaintance Many, And Conquaintance Few, But For Inquaintance I Know Only Two - The Friend I've Wept And The Maid I Woo.

Humor Is Consistent With Pathos, Whilst Wit Is Not.

Exclusively Of The Abstract Sciences, The Largest And Worthiest Portion Of Our Knowledge Consists Of Aphorisms: And The Greatest And Best Of Men Is But An Aphorism.

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.

He Prayeth Best, Who Loveth Best All Things Both Great And Small; For The Dear God Who Loveth Us, He Made And Loveth All.

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.

As There Is Much Beast And Some Devil In Man, So Is There Some Angel And Some God In Him. The Beast And The Devil May Be Conquered, But In This Life Never Destroyed.

A Single Thought Is That Which It Is From Other Thoughts As A Wave Of The Sea Takes Its Form And Shape From The Waves Which Precede And Follow It.

...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.

False Doctrine Does Not Necessarily Make A Man A Heretic, But An Evil Heart Can Make Any Doctrine Heretical.

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.

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

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

Readers May Be Divided Into Four Classes: 1) Sponges, Who Absorb All That They Read And Return It In Nearly The Same State, Only A Little Dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, Who Retain Nothing And Are Content To Get Through A Book For The Sake Of Getting Through The Time. 3) Strain-bags, Who Retain Merely The Dregs Of What They Read. 4) Mogul Diamonds, Equally Rare And Valuable, Who Profit By What They Read, And Enable Others To Profit By It Also

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

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.

The Whole Faculties Of Man Must Be Exerted In Order To Call Forth Noble Energies; And He Who Is Not Earnestly Sincere Lives In But Half His Being, Self-mutilated, Self-paralyzed.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm. For What Is Enthusiasm But The Oblivion And Swallowing-up Of Self In An Object Dearer Than Self?

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

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

The Water-lily, In The Midst Of Waters, Opens Its Leaves And Expands Its Petals, At The First Pattering Of The Shower, And Rejoices In The Rain-drops With A Quicker Sympathy Than The Packed Shrubs In The Sandy Desert.

The Happiness Of Life Is Made Up Of Minute Fractions.

Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree.

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

That Willing Suspension Of Disbelief For The Moment, Which Constitutes Poetic Faith.

Iambics March From Short To Long;-- With A Leap And A Bound The Swift Anapaests Throng

'tis A Month Before The Month Of May, And The Spring Comes Slowly Up This Way.

The Act Of Praying Is The Very Highest Energy Of Which The Human Mind Is Capable; Praying, That Is, With The Total Concentration Of The Faculties. The Great Mass Of Worldly Men And Of Learned Men Are Absolutely Incapable Of Prayer.

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

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

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

I Never Knew A Trader In Philanthropy Who Was Not Wrong In His Head Or Heart Somewhere Or Other.

Every Human Feeling Is Greater And Larger Than Its Exciting Cause-a Proof, I Think, That Man Is Designed For A Higher State Of Existence.

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.

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.

Indignation At Literary Wrongs I Leave To Men Born Under Happier Stars. I Cannot Afford It.

A People Are Free In Proportion As They Form Their Own Opinions.

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

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

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.

Cant Is The Parrot Talk Of A Profession.

When The Whole And The Parts Are Seen At Once, As Mutually Producing And Explaining Each Other, As Unity In Multeity, There Results Shapeliness.

Ancestral Voices Prophesying War.

No Sound Is Dissonant Which Tells Of Life.

Men, I Still Think, Ought To Be Weighed Not Counted.

Never Yet Did There Exist A Full Faith In The Divine Word (by Whom Light As Well As Immortality Was Brought Into The World) Which Did Not Expand The Intellect, While It Purified The Heart--which Did Not Multiply The Aims And Objects Of The Understanding, While It Fixed And Simplified Those Of The Desires And Passions.

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

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.

Christianity Is Within A Man, Even As He Is Gifted With Reason; It Is Associated With Your Mother's Chair, And With The First Remembered, Tones Of Her Blessed Voice.

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.

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.

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

Ah Why Refuse The Blameless Bliss? Can Danger Lurk Within A Kiss?

The Nightmare Life-in-death Was She.

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.

The Curiosity Of An Honorable Mind Willingly Rests There, Where The Love Of Truth Does Not Urge It Farther Onward, And The Love Of Its Neighbor Bids It Stop; In Other Words, It Willingly Stops At The Point Where The Interests Of Truth Do Not Beckon It Onward, And Charity Cries, Halt!

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

Farewell, Farewell! But This I Tell To Thee, Thou Wedding-guest! He Prayeth Well, Who Loveth Well Both Man And Bird And Beast.

We Have To Administer The Law Whether We Like It Or No.

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

Health Is A Great Blessing--competence Obtained By Honorable Industry Is A Great Blessing--and A Great Blessing It Is To Have Kind, Faithful, And Loving Friends And Relatives; But, That The Greatest Of All Blessings, As It Is The Most Ennobling Of All Privileges, Is To Be Indeed A Christian.

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.

All Sympathy Not Consistent With Acknowledged Virtue Is But Disguised Selfishness.

Memory, Bosom-spring Of Joy.

What If You Slept? And What If, In Your Sleep, You Went To Heaven And There Plucked A Strange And Beautiful Flower? And What If,when You Awoke,you Had The Flower In Your Hand? Ah, What Then?

To All New Truths, Or Renovation Of Old Truths, It Must Be As In The Ark Between The Destroyed And The About-to-be Renovated World. The Raven Must Be Sent Out Before The Dove, And Ominous Controversy Must Precede Peace And The Olive Wreath.

I Do Not Wish You To Act From These Truths; No, Still And Always Act From Your Feelings; Only Meditate Often On These Truths That Sometime Or Other They May Become Your Feelings.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

As Long As We Have To Administer The Law We Must Do So According To The Law As It Is. We Are Not Here To Make The Law.

Oh Worse Than Everything, Is Kindness Counterfeiting Absent Love.

No Man Was Ever Yet A Great Poet, Without Being At The Same Time A Profound Philosopher.

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?

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.

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

Intense Study Of The Bible Will Keep Any Writer From Being Vulgar, In Point Of Style.

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.

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

Genius Is The Power Of Carrying The Feelings Of Childhood Into The Powers Of Manhood.

A Man's As Old As He's Feeling. A Woman As Old As She Looks.

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.

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

There Is No Slight Danger From General Ignorance; And The Only Choice Which Providence Has Graciously Left To A Vicious Government Is Either To Fall By The People, If They Are Suffered To Become Enlightened, Or With Them, If They Are Kept Enslaved And Ignorant.

Ignorance Seldom Vaults Into Knowledge.

A Grief Without A Pang, Void, Dark And Drear, A Drowsy, Stifled, Unimpassioned Grief, Which Finds No Natural Outlet Or Relief, In Word, Or Sigh, Or Tear.

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

I Understood That You Would Take The Human Race In The Concrete, Have Exploded The Absurd Notion Of Pope's Essay On Man, [erasmus] Darwin, And All The Countless Believers-even (strange To Say) Among Xtians-of Man's Having Progressed From An Ouran Outang State-so Contrary To All History, To All Religion, Nay, To All Possibility-to Have Affirmed A Fall In Some Sense.

A Woman In A Single State May Be Happy And May Be Miserable; But Most Happy, Most Miserable, These Are Epithets Belonging To A Wife.

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.

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

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 Everything Which Is The Object Of His Contemplation.

Milton Had A Highly Imaginative, Cowley A Very Fanciful Mind.

Painting Is The Intermediate Somewhat Between A Thought And A Thing.

Rage Is Essentially Vulgar.

I Feel As If God Had, By Giving The Sabbath, Given Fifty-two Springs In Every Year.

No Man Was Ever Yet A Great Poet, Without Being At The Same Time A Profound Philosopher. For Poetry Is The Blossom And The Fragrance Of All Human Knowledge, Human Thoughts, Human Passions, Emotions, Language.

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.

Real Pain Can Alone Cure Us Of Imaginary Ills. We Feel A Thousand Miseries Till We Are Lucky Enough To Feel Misery.

Words In Prose Ought To Express The Intended Meaning; If They Attract Attention To Themselves, It Is A Fault; In The Very Best Styles You Read Page After Page Without Noticing The Medium. Works Of Imagination Should Be Written In Very Plain Language; The More Purely Imaginative They Are, The More Necessary It Is To Be Plain.

The Best Part Of Human Language, Properly So Called, Is Derived From Reflection On The Acts Of The Mind Itself.

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

In Koln, A Town Of Monks And Bones, And Pavement Fang'd With Murderous Stones, And Rags And Hags, And Hideous Wenches, I Counted Two-and-seventy Stenches, All Well Defined, And Several Stinks! Ye Nymphs That Reign O'er Sewers And Sinks, The River Rhine, It Is Well Known, Doth Wash Your City Of Cologne; But Tell Me, Nymphs! What Power Divine Shall Henceforth Whash The River Rhine.

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.

The Fair Breeze Blew, The White Foam Flew, And The Forrow Followed Free. We Were The First To Ever Burst Into The Silent Sea.

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.

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.

Motives By Excess Reverse Their Very Nature And Instead Of Exciting, Stun And Stupefy The Mind.

Never To See Or Describe Any Interesting Appearance In Nature, Without Connecting It By Dim Analogies With The Moral World, Proves Faintness Of Impression. Nature Has Her Proper Interest; & He Will Know What It Is, Who Believes & Feels, That Every Thing Has A Life Of It's Own, & That We Are All One Life.

As I Live And Am A Man, This Is An Unexaggerated Tale - My Dreams Become The Substances Of My Life.

The First Class Of Readers May Be Compared To An Hour-glass, Their Reading Being As The Sand; It Runs In And Runs Out, And Leaves Not A Vestige Behind. A Second Class Resembles A Sponge, Which Imbibes Everything, And Returns It In Nearly The Same State, Only A Little Dirtier. A Third Class Is Like A Jelly-bag, Which Allows All That Is Pure To Pass Away, And Retains Only The Refuse And Dregs. The Fourth Class May Be Compared To The Slave Of Golconda, Who, Casting Aside All That Is Worthless, Preserves Only The Pure Gems.

Joy Is The Sweet Voice, Joy The Luminous Cloud. We In Ourselves Rejoice! And Thence Flows All That Charms Or Ear Or Sight, All Melodies The Echoes Of That Voice, All Colours A Suffusion From That Light.

A Great Mind Must Be Androgynous.

A Rogue Is A Roundabout Fool.

A Gothic Church Is A Petrified Religion.

An Ear For Music Is Very Different From A Taste For Music. I Have No Ear Whatever; I Could Not Sing An Air To Save My Life; But I Have The Intensest Delight In Music, And Can Detect Good From Bad.

The History Of Man For The Nine Months Preceding His Birth Would, Probably, Be Far More Interesting And Contain Events Of Greater Moment Than All The Three Score And Ten Years That Follow It.

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.

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

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.

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

And They Three Passed Over The White Sands, Between The Rocks, Silent As The Shadows.

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.

The Genius Of Coleridge Is Like A Sunken Treasure Ship, And Coleridge A Diver Too Timid And Lazy To Bring Its Riches To The Surface.

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.

Poor Little Foal Of An Oppressed Race! I Love The Languid Patience Of Thy Face.

What Is An Epigram? A Dwarfish Whole, Its Body Brevity, And Wit Its Soul.

That Gracious Thing, Made Up Of Tears And Light.

We Ne'er Can Be Made Happy By Compulsion.

He Saw A Lawyer Killing A Viper On A Dunghill Hard By His Own Stable; And The Devil Smiled, For It Put Him In Mind Of Cain And His Brother Abel.

Some Persons Have Contended That Mathematics Ought To Be Taught By Making The Illustrations Obvious To The Senses. Nothing Can Be More Absurd Or Injurious: It Ought To Be Our Never-ceasing Effort To Make People Think, Not Feel.

The Most General Definition Of Beauty ... Multeity In Unity.

Definition Of Beauty

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.

How Did The Atheist Get His Idea Of That God Whom He Denies?

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.

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