Samuel Taylor Quotes

Happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its foundation.

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.

The love of indolence is universal, or next to it.

The history of all the world tells us that immoral means will ever intercept good ends.

The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, all hope of further amendment was lost.

O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.

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.

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.

It is a flat'ning Thought, that the more we have seen, the less we have to say.

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.

To leave no interval between the sentence and the fulfillment of it doth beseem God only, the Immutable!

The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space.

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.

The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object.

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.

Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born under happier stars. I cannot afford it.

To know, to esteem, to love,-and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart.

Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like playthings by the bedside of a child deathly sick.

What is one man's gain is another's loss.

Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premises, but in the nature and parts of premises.

About, about, in reel and rout the death fires danced at night.

Show me one couple unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show you ten who are wretched from other causes.

Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from, as pickpockets are observed commonly to walk with their hands in their breeches' pockets.

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.

History has a point of view; it cannot be all things to all people.

Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a thought and a thing.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze - On me alone it blew.

Never can true courage dwell with them, Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices.

That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.

O pure of heart! Thou needest not ask of me what this strong music in the soul may be!

A rogue is a roundabout fool.

I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark.

The poet is the man made to solve the riddle of the universe who brings the whole soul of man into activity.

Novels are to love as fairy tales to dreams.

To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality.

Prayer is the very highest energy of which the mind is capable.

I attended [Sir Humphry] Davy's lectures to renew my stock of metaphors.

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself.

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.

I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.

The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast.

The heart should have fed upon the truth, as insects on a leaf, till it be tinged with the color, and show its food in every ... minutest fiber.

Sublimity is Hebrew by birth.

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.

Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young!

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.

And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Is duty a mere sport, or an employ! Life an entrusted talent or a toy!

The spirit of poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only to unite power with beauty.