Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
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.
The many men, so beautiful!And they all dead did lie:And a thousand thousand slimy thingsLived on; and so did I.
What if you slept And what if In your sleep You dreamed And what if In your dream You went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if When you awoke You had that flower in you hand Ah, what then?
Water, water, everywhere,And all the boards did shrink;Water, water, everywhere,Nor any drop to drink.
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.
In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.
Then all the charm Is broken–all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other.
To be loved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.
A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
An orphan’s curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality’s dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind.
Swans sing before they die— ‘t were no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.
that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith
Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.
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.
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.
What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awake, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?
On Pilgrim’s Progress: “I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors.
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.
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.
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 awoke – Aye! and what then?
A man’s desire is for the woman, but the woman’s desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.
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.- (1772-1834)
Men, I still think, ought to be weighed, not counted. Their worth ought to be the final estimate of their value.
Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions, forms our true honor.
In poems, equally as in philosophic disquisitions, genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty while it rescues the most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legsUpon the slimy sea.
Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the deserving.
Advice is like snow the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship which illumine only the track it has passed.
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 happiness of life is made up of minute fractions-the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile a kind look a heart-felt compliment and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
Only the wise possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
Facts are not truths they are not conclusions they are not even premisses but in the nature and parts of premisses.
As long as there are readers to be delighted with calumny there will be found reviewers to calumniate.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions – the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile a kind look a heartfelt compliment and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole its body brevity and wit its soul.
So lonely ’twas that God himself scarce seemed there to be.
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.
Swans sing before they die – ’twere no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing.
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 their best order.
He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.
The wise only possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole Its body brevity and wit its soul.
Language is the armoury of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
As I live and am a man, this is an unexaggerated tale – my dreams become the substances of my life.
People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.
No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.
In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure.
Love is flower like Friendship is like a sheltering tree.
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.
A poet ought not to pick nature’s pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.
Swans sing before they die – ’twere no bad thing should certain persons die before they sing.
The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.
Not one man in a thousand has the strength of mind or the goodness of heart to be an atheist.
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.
How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them.
The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.
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.
To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.
Alas! they had been friends in youth but whispering tongues can poison truth.
All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.
The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.
Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never.
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.
Love is flower like Friendship is like a sheltering tree.
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.
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.