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The Secondary Imagination 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.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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The Secondary Imagination I

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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The Secondary Imagination 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.

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An Idea, In The Highest Sense Of That Word, Cannot Be Conveyed But By A Symbol.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

...in Consequence Of The Film Of Familiarity And Selfish Solicitude, We Have Eyes Yet See Not, Ears That Hear Not, And Hearts That Neither Feel Nor Understand.

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

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.

I Must Reject Fluids And Ethers Of All Kinds, Magnetical, Electrical, And Universal, To Whatever Quintessential Thinness They May Be Treble Distilled, And As It Were Super-substantiated.

The Poet Is The Man Made To Solve The Riddle Of The Universe Who Brings The Whole Soul Of Man Into Activity.

No Sound Is Dissonant Which Tells Of Life.

Hence, Viper Thoughts, That Coil Around My Mind,reality's Dark Dream!i Turn From You, And Listen To The Wind,which Long Has Raved Unnoticed.

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.

Dryden 's Genius Was Of That Sort Which Catches Fire By Its Own Motion; His Chariot Wheels Get Hot By Driving Fast.

There Is Small Chance Of Truth At The Goal, Where There Is Not Childlike Humility At The Starting-post.

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

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.

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

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

All Nature Seems At Work.

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?

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.

Taste Is The Intermediate Faculty Which Connects The Active With The Passive Powers Of Our Nature, The Intellect With The Senses; And Its Appointed Function Is To Elevate The Images Of The Latter, While It Realizes The Ideas Of The Former.

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?

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

To Sentence A Man Of True Genius, To The Drudgery Of A School Is To Put A Racehorse On A Treadmill.

The Love Of A Mother Is The Veil Of A Softer Light Between The Heart And The Heavenly Father.

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

Inspirational Life

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

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.

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

How Deep A Wound To Morals And Social Purity Has That Accursed Article Of The Celibacy Of The Clergy Been! Even The Best And Most Enlightened Men In Romanist Countries Attach A Notion Of Impurity To The Marriage Of A Clergyman. And Can Such A Feeling Be Without Its Effect On The Estimation Of The Wedded Life In General? Impossible! And The Morals Of Both Sexes In Spain, Italy, France, And. Prove It Abundantly.

Silence Does Not Always Mark Wisdom.

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

About, About, In Reel And Rout The Death Fires Danced At Night.

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

Joy Rises In Me, Like A Summer's Morn.

Bells, The Poor Man's Only Music.

Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree.

That Gracious Thing, Made Up Of Tears And Light.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

A Man Of Maxims Only Is Like A Cyclops With One Eye, And That In The Back Of His Head.

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.

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

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

Poetry, Even That Of The Loftiest, And Seemingly, That Of The Wildest Odes, [has] A Logic Of Its Own As Severe As That Of Science; And More Difficult, Because More Subtle, More Complex, And Dependent On More And More Fugitive Causes. In The Truly Great Poets... There Is A Reason Assignable, Not Only For Every Word, But For The Position Of Every Word.

The Genius Of The Spanish People Is Exquisitely Subtle, Without Being At All Acute; Hence There Is So Much Humour And So Little Wit In Their Literature.

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.

Every Crime Has, In The Moment Of Its Perpetration, Its Own Avenging Angel-dark Misgiving, An Ominous Sinking At The Inmost Heart.

Metaphysics,--the Science Which Determines What Can And What Cannot Be Known Of Being And The Laws Of Being.

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.

Centres, Or Centre-pieces Of Wood, Are Put By Builders Under An Arch Of Stone While It Is In The Process Of Construction Till The Keystone Is Put In. Just Such Is The Use Satan Makes Of Pleasures To Construct Evil Habits Upon; The Pleasure Lasts Till The Habit Is Fully Formed; But That Done The Habit May Stand Eternal. The Pleasures Are Sent For Firewood, And The Hell Begins In This Life.

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.

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.

Blest Hour! It Was A Luxury--to Be!

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.

Sublimity Is Hebrew By Birth.

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

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

Ancestral Voices Prophesying War.

The Faults Of Great Authors Are Generally Excellences Carried To An Excess.

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.

Remorse Weeps Tears Of Blood.

He Prayeth Best Who Loveth Best.

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

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.

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.

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

The Wise Only Possess Ideas; The Greater Part Of Mankind Are Possessed By Them.

In What Way, Or By What Manner Of Working, God Changes A Soul From Evil To Good, How He Impregnates The Barren Rock--the Priceless Gems And Gold--is To The Human Mind An Impenetrable Mystery, In All Cases Alike.

That Agony Returns; And Till My Ghastly Tale Is Told, This Heart Within Me Burns.

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

A Gothic Church Is A Petrified Religion.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Memory, Bosom-spring Of Joy.

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

Above All Things I Entreat You To Preserve Your Faith In Christ. It Is My Wealth In Poverty, My Joy In Sorrow, My Peace Amid Tumult. For All The Evil I Have Committed, My Gracious Pardon; And For Every Effort, My Exceeding Great Reward. I Have Found It To Be So. I Can Smile With Pity At The Infidel Whose Vanity Makes Him Dream That I Should Barter Such A Blessing For The Few Subtleties From The School Of The Cold-blooded Sophists.

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

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.

Never Pursue Literature As A Trade.

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 Us Is A Lantern On The Stern, Which Shines Only On The Waves Behind Us.

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

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

That Saints Will Aid If Men Will Call; For The Blue Sky Bends Over All!

If You Would Stand Well With A Great Mind, Leave Him With A Favorable Impression Of Yourself; If With A Little Mind, Leave Him With A Favorable Impression Of Himself.

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.

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.

Brute Animals Have The Vowel Sounds; Man Only Can Utter Consonants.

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

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.

All Powerful Souls Have Kindred With Each Other

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

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

For I Often Please Myself With The Fancy, Now That I May Have Saved From Oblivion The Only Striking Passage In A Whole Volume, And Now That I May Have Attracted Notice To A Writer Undeservedly Forgotten.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

A Rogue Is A Roundabout Fool.

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.

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.

Talk Of The Devil, And His Horns Appear.

The Most Happy Marriage I Can Picture Or Imagine To Myself Would Be The Union Of A Deaf Man To A Blind Woman.

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

Her Skin Was White As Leprosy.

And What If All Of Animated Nature Be But Organic Harps Diversely Framed, That Tremble Into Thought, As O'er Them Sweeps, Plastic And Vast, One Intellectual Breeze, At Once The Soul Of Each, And God Of All?

Plagiarists Are Always Suspicious Of Being Stolen From.

Come, Come Thou Bleak December Wind, And Blow The Dry Leaves From The Tree! Flash, Like A Love-thought, Thro'me, Death And Take A Life That Wearies Me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

It Would Not Be Correct To Say That Every Moral Obligation Involves A Legal Duty; But Every Legal Duty Is Founded On A Moral Obligation.

Oh Worse Than Everything, Is Kindness Counterfeiting Absent Love.

As It Must Not, So Genius Cannot Be Lawless; For It Is Even That Constitutes Its Genius - The Power Of Acting Creatively Under Laws Of Its Own Origination.

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.

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.

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.

The Myriad-minded Man, Our, And All Men's, Shakespeare, Has In This Piece Presented Us With A Legitimate Farce In Exactest Consonance With The Philosophical Principles And Character Of Farce, As Distinguished From Comedy And From Entertainments. A Proper Farce Is Mainly Distinguished From Comedy By The Licence Allowed, And Even Required, In The Fable, In Order To Produce Strange And Laughable Situations. The Story Need Not Be Probable, It Is Enough That It Is Possible.

The Happiness Of Life Is Made Up Of Minute Fractions.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Carry Feelings Of Childhood Into The Powers Of Adulthood, To Combine The Child's Sense Of Wonder And Novelty With The Appearances Which Every Day For Years Has Rendered Familiar, This Is The Character And Privilege Of Genius, And One Of The Marks Which Distinguish It From Talent.

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

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.

Conscience Is The Pulse Of Reason

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

Pity Is Best Taught By Fellowship In Woe.

Alone, Alone, All, All Alone, Alone On A Wide Wide Sea! And Never Saint Took Pity On My Soul In Agony

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.

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.

There Is Nothing Insignificant-nothing.

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

The Nightmare Life-in-death Was She.

Persecution Is A Very Easy Form Of Virtue.

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.

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.

A Savage Place! As Holy And Enchanted/as E'er Beneath The Waning Moon Was Haunted/by Woman Wailing For Her Demon Lover!

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.

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

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.

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!

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

A Stately Pleasure-dome Decree.

Stimulate The Heart To Love And The Mind To Be Early Accurate, And All Other Virtues Will Rise Of Their Own Accord, And All Vices Will Be Thrown Out.

Call Not That Man Wretched, Who Whatever Else He Suffers As To Pain Inflicted, Or Pleasure Denied, Has A Child For Whom He Hopes And On Whom He Doats.

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.

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

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

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

How Inimitably Graceful Children Are In General-before They Learn To Dance.

Nothing Can Permanently Please, Which Doesn't Contain In Itself The Reason Why It Is So, And Not Otherwise.

Ah! From The Soul Itself Must Issue Forth A Light, A Glory, A Fair Luminous Cloud Enveloping The Earth.

And In Today Already Walks Tomorrow.

The Worth And Value Of Knowledge Is In Proportion To The Worth And Value Of Its Object.

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

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

Farce Is Nearer Tragedy In Its Essence Than Comedy Is.

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.

Greatness And Goodness Are Not Means, But Ends.

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.

My Case Is A Species Of Madness, Only That It Is A Derangement Of The Volition, And Not Of The Intellectual Faculties.

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.

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

Poetry Is Not The Proper Antithesis To Prose, But To Science. Poetry Is Opposed To Science, And Prose To Meter. The Proper And Immediate Object Of Science Is The Acquirement, Or Communication Of Truth; The Proper And Immediate Object Of Poetry Is The Communication Of Immediate Pleasure.

Prose And Poetry

No Man Does Anything From A Single Motive.

I Do Not Call The Sod Under My Feet My Country; But Language-religion-government-blood-identity In These Makes Men Of One Country.

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.

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

God Is Everywhere! The God Who Framed Mankind To Be One, Mighty Family, Himself Our Father, And The World Our Home.

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

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

Ignorance Seldom Vaults Into Knowledge.

Love Is Flower Like; Friendship Is Like A Sheltering Tree.

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Caroline B. Cooney

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