Quotes

Quotes

Quotes to inspire and reflect

William Congreve
William Congreve

Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned,

Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.

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William Congreve
William Congreve

Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.

The Old Bachelor (1693) act 5, sc. 10

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William Congreve
William Congreve

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast.

The Mourning Bride (1697) act 1, sc. 1

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Confúcio
Confúcio

A man who reviews the old so as to find out the new is qualified to teach others.

Analects ch. 2, v. 11

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

Table Talk (1835) 5 October 1830

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!

Table Talk (1835) 18 December 1831

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.

Table Talk (1835) 12 July 1827

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.

of Edmund Kean

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

Biographia Literaria (1817) ch. 14

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant’s shoulder to mount on.

The Friend (1818) vol. 2 ‘On the Principles of Political Knowledge’; see Bernard 32:10, Newton 250:15

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.

Aids to Reflection (1825) ‘Moral and Religious Aphorisms’ no. 25

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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.

Biographia Literaria (1817) ch. 13

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison!

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A sadder and a wiser man,

He rose the morrow morn.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out;

At one stride comes the dark.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He holds him with his glittering eye—

The Wedding-Guest stood still.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock.

‘Kubla Khan’ (1816) preliminary note

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,

Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin

Is pride that apes humility.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O Lady! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does Nature live.

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Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen

I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.

in Observer 2 May 1993 ‘Sayings of the Week’

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Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

Le Rappel à l’ordre (1926) ‘Le Coq et l’Arlequin’

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Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.

Opium (1930)

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Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau

Life is a horizontal fall.

Opium (1930)

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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.

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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.

‘Say not the struggle naught availeth’ (1855)

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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough

Thou shalt not covet; but tradition

Approves all forms of competition.

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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,

When it’s so lucrative to cheat.

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