209 quotes
How well he fell asleep!
Like some proud river, widening toward the sea;
Calmly and grandly, silently and deep,
Life joined eternity.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
Blest hour! it was a luxury — to be!
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.
The paternal and filial duties discipline the heart and prepare it for the love of all mankind. The intensity of private attachment encourages, not prevents, universal benevolence.
So often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
So for the mother’s sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
Dejection: An Ode (1802)
The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.
On Poesy or Art (1818)
In wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends. ... But the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration.
Aids to Reflection (1825)
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn.
Exclusively of the abstract science, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
Aids to Reflection (1825)
I can smile with pity at the infidel whose vanity makes him dream that I should barter such a blessing for the few subtleties from the school of the cold-blooded sophists.
Metaphisics is a word that you, my dear Sir! are no great friend to
but yet you will agree, that a great Poet must be, implicitè if not explicitè, a profound Metaphysician.
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)
Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Duty surviving Self-Love (1826)
Tranquillity! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame!
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,—
His eyes are in his mind.What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.
In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.
Aids to Reflection (1825)
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
Kubla Khan (1797)