661 Quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.

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.

The many men, so beautiful!And they all dead did lie:And a thousand thousand slimy thingsLived on; and so did I.

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.