Samuel Taylor Quotes

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.

I do not wish you to act from these truths; no, still and always act from your feelings; only meditate often on these truths that sometime or other they may become your feelings.

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.

Milton had a highly imaginative, Cowley a very fanciful mind.

Bells, the poor man's only music.

There is nothing insignificant-nothing.

I know the Bible is inspired because it finds me at greater depths of my being than any other book.

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

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.

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.

A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.

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 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.

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.

False doctrine does not necessarily make a man a heretic, but an evil heart can make any doctrine heretical.

Men, I still think, ought to be weighed not counted.

Every human feeling is greater and larger than its exciting cause-a proof, I think, that man is designed for a higher state of existence.

That only can with propriety be styled refinement which, by strengthening the intellect, purifies the manners.

The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she.

The form of truth will bear exposure, as well as that of beauty herself.

Farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.

A people are free in proportion as they form their own opinions.

No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.

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!

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

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

Sabrina: “But you don’t believe in marriage.”Linus: “Yes, I do. It’s why I’ve never married.

On Pilgrim's Progress: “I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors.

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.

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.

What begins in fear usually ends in folly.

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.

What comes from the heart goes to the heart.

Only the wise possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.