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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.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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To All New Truths,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

That Gracious Thing, Made Up Of Tears And Light.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Paternal And Filial Duties Discipline The Heart, And Prepare It For The Love Of All Mankind. The Intensity Of Private Attachment Encourages, Not Prevents, Universal Benevolence.

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

He Prayeth Best Who Loveth Best.

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

To Doubt Has More Of Faith ... Than That Blank Negation Of All Such Thoughts And Feelings Which Is The Lot Of The Herd Of Church-and-meeting Trotters.

Greatness And Goodness Are Not Means, But Ends.

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.

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

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.

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

Lovely Was The Death Of Him Whose Life Was Love! Holy With Power, He On The Thought-benighted Skeptic Beamed Manifest Godhead.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Death Came With Friendly Care; The Opening Bud To Heaven Conveyed, And Bade It Blossom There.

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.

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

Oh Sleep! It Is A Gentle Thing, Beloved From Pole To Pole.

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

Remorse Weeps Tears Of Blood.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

He Is The Best Physician Who Is The Most Ingenious Inspirer Of Hope.

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

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

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.

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?

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

So Will I Build My Altar In The Fields, And The Blue Sky My Fretted Dome Shall Be, And The Sweet Fragrance That The Wild Flower Yields Shall Be The Incense I Will Yield To Thee.

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

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

Prayer Is The Very Highest Energy Of Which The Mind Is Capable.

My Eyes Make Pictures When They Are Shut.

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.

In Philosophy Equally As In Poetry It Is The Highest And Most Useful Prerogative Of Genius To Produce The Strongest Impressions Of Novelty, While It Rescues Admitted Truths From The Neglect Caused By The Very Circumstance Of Their Universal Admission.

Some Men Are Like Musical Glasses; To Produce Their Finest Tones You Must Keep Them Wet.

Men Of Genius Are Rarely Much Annoyed By The Company Of Vulgar People.

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.

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.

Prose And Poetry

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

We Have No Adequate Conception Of The Perfection Of The Ancient Tragic Dance. The Pleasure Which The Greeks Received From It Had For Its Basis Difference; & The More Unfit The Vehicle, The More Lively Was The Curiosity & Intense The Delights At Seeing The Difficulty Overcome.

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?

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.

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.

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.

The Annals Of The French Revolution Prove That The Knowledge Of The Few Cannot Counteract The Ignorance Of The Many.... The Light Of Philosophy, When It Is Confined To A Small Minority, Points Out The Possessors As The Victims Rather Than The Illuminators Of The Multitude.

To Leave No Interval Between The Sentence And The Fulfillment Of It Doth Beseem God Only, The Immutable!

Alas! They Had Been Friends In Youth; But Whispering Tongues Can Poison Truth, And Constancy Lives In Realms Above; And Life Is Thorny, And Youth Is Vain; And To Be Wroth With One We Love Doth Work Like Madness In The Brain.

Why Is It That So Many Of Us Persist In Thinking That Autumn Is A Sad Season? Nature Has Merely Fallen Asleep, And Her Dreams Must Be Beautiful If We Are To Judge By Her Countenance.

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

Never Pursue Literature As A Trade.

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

I Have Seen Great Intolerance Shown In Support Of Tolerance.

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

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.

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

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!

Deep Thinking Is Attainable Only By A Man Of Deep Feeling, And All Truth Is A Species Of Revelation

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.

Ignorance Seldom Vaults Into Knowledge.

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

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.

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.

Summer Has Set In With Its Usual Severity.

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

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.

Force Yourself To Reflect On What You Read, Paragraph By Paragraph.

A Great Mind Must Be Androgynous.

We Ne'er Can Be Made Happy By Compulsion.

A Nation To Be Great Ought To Be Compressed In Its Increment By Nations More Civilized Than Itself.

Pity Is Best Taught By Fellowship In Woe.

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.

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

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.

An Undevout Poet Is An Impossibility.

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.

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

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

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

The Principle Of The Gothic Architecture Is Infinity Made Imaginable.

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.

God! Sing, Ye Meadow-streams, With Gladsome Voice! Ye Pine-groves, With Your Soft And Soul-like Sounds! And They Too Have A Voice, You Piles Of Snow, And In Their Perilous Fall Shall Thunder, God!

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

Talk Of The Devil, And His Horns Appear.

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.

We Must Follow The Old Authorities And Precedents In Criminal Matters.

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.

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.

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.

And Here Were Forests Ancient As The Hills, Enfolding Sunny Spots Of Greenery.

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.

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.

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

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

One Thought Includes All Thought, In The Sense That A Grain Of Sand Includes The Universe.

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.

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

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

The Definition Of Good Prose Is Proper Words In Their Proper Places; Of Good Verse, The Most Proper Words In Their Proper Places.the Propriety Is In Either Case Relative. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Friendship Is A Sheltering Tree.

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

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.

The Dwarf Sees Farther Than The Giant, When He Has The Giant's Shoulders To Mount On.

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

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 Doing Evil To Avoid An Evil Cannot Be Good.

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

I Believe That Obstinacy, Or The Dread Of Control And Discipline, Arises Not So Much From Self-willedness As From A Conscious Defect Of Voluntary Power; As Foolhardiness Is Not Seldom The Disguise Of Conscious Timidity.

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.

An Instinctive Taste Teaches Men To Build Their Churches With Spire Steeples Which Point As With A Silent Finger To The Sky And Stars.

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.

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 .

A Stately Pleasure-dome Decree.

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.

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.

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

There Are Three Classes Into Which All The Women Past Seventy That Ever I Knew Were To Be Divided: 1. That Dear Old Soul; 2. That Old Woman; 3. That Old Witch.

[coleridge] Selected An Instance Of What Was Called The Sublime, In Darwin, Who Imagined The Creation Of The Universe To Have Taken Place In A Moment, By The Explosion Of A Mass Of Matter In The Womb, Or Centre Of Space. In One And The Same Instant Of Time, Suns And Planets Shot Into Systems In Every Direction, And Filled And Spangled The Illimitable Void! He Asserted This To Be An Intolerable Degradation -referring, As It Were, All The Beauty And Harmony Of Nature To Something Like The Bursting Of A Barrel Of Gunpowder! That Spit Its Combustible Materials Into A Pock-freckled Creation!

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?

Those Who Best Know Human Nature Will Acknowledge Most Fully What A Strength Light Hearted Nonsense Give To A Hard Working Man

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

All Thoughts, All Passions, All Delights Whatever Stirs This Mortal Frame All Are But Ministers Of Love And Feed His Sacred Flame.

Oh Worse Than Everything, Is Kindness Counterfeiting Absent Love.

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.

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!

Happiness Can Be Built Only On Virtue, And Must Of Necessity Have Truth For Its Foundation.

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

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

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.

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.

There Is Nothing Insignificant-nothing.

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.

What Comes From The Heart Goes To The Heart

I Shall Attack Chemistry, Like A Shark.

Poetry Has Been To Me Its Own Exceeding Great Reward; It Has Given Me The Habit Of Wishing To Discover The Good And Beautiful In All That Meets And Surrounds 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Reviewers Are Usually People Who Would Have Been, Poets, Historians, Biographer, If They Could. They Have Tried Their Talents At One Thing Or Another And Have Failed; Therefore They Turn Critic.

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.

I Have Heard Of Reasons Manifold Why Love Must Needs Be Blind, But This The Best Of All I Hold,- His Eyes Are In His Mind.

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 Is One Man's Gain Is Another's Loss.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

Seldom Can Philosophic Genius Be More Usefully Employed Than In Thus Rescuing Admitted Truths From The Neglect Caused By The Very Circumstance Of Their Universal Admission.

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Joseph J. Ellis

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