Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poet and philosopher, 1772-1834

Cited as Coleridge. — 242 quotations

A priori

A priori, that is, form these necessities of the mind or forms of thinking, which, though first revealed to us by experience, must yet have preëxisted in order to make experience possible.

accrescence

The silent accrescence of belief from the unwatched depositions of a general, never contradicted hearsy.

Additament

My persuasion that the latter verses of the chapter were an additament of a later age.

Advene

Where no act of the will advenes as a coefficient.

Affectible

Lay aside the absolute, and, by union with the creaturely, become affectible.

Agglomerative

Taylor is eminently discursive, accumulative, and (to use one of his own words) agglomerative.

Alone

Alone on a wide, wide sea.

Along

He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along.

Alterity

For outness is but the feeling of otherness (alterity) rendered intuitive, or alterity visually represented.

Androgynous

The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.

Animadversive

I do not mean there is a certain number of ideas glaring and shining to the animadversive faculty.

Animalize

The unconscious irony of the Epicurean poet on the animalizing tendency of his own philosophy.

Appurtenant

Mysterious appurtenants and symbols of redemption.

Articulation

That definiteness and articulation of imagery.

Association

Why should . . . the holiest words, with all their venerable associations, be profaned?

Assurgency

The . . . assurgency of the spirit through the body.

Atomistic

It is the object of the mechanical atomistic philosophy to confound synthesis with synartesis.

Attenuate

The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts.

Aver

Then all averred I had killed the bird.

Banquet

Just in time to banquet The illustrious company assembled there.

Beauty

The old definition of beauty, in the Roman school, was, “multitude in unity;” and there is no doubt that such is the principle of beauty.

Become

I have known persons so anxious to have their dress become them, as to convert it, at length, into their proper self, and thus actually to become the dress.

Bend

While each to his great Father bends.

Best

He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small.

Blade

He saw a turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade.

Both

He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

Breeches

His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue.

Brim

Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim I would remove it with an anxious pity.

Brimstone

From his brimstone bed at break of day A-walking the devil has gone.

Burden

It is absurd to burden this act on Cromwell.

Burst

We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

Carve

Carved with figures strange and sweet.

Chaffy

Chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail.

Chasm

That deep, romantic chasm which slanted down the green hill.

Choric

I remember a choric ode in the Hecuba.

Christendom

A wide and still widening Christendom.

Circle

So he lies, circled with evil.

Cloudage

A scudding cloudage of shapes.

Cloudlet

Eve's first star through fleecy cloudlet peeping.

Coadunation

The coadunation of all the civilized provinces.

Collate

I must collate it, word by word, with the original Hebrew.

Commence

We commence judges ourselves.

Complexion

This paragraph is . . . a complexion of sophisms.

Concentric

Its pecular relations to its concentrics.

Conception

Conception consists in a conscious act of the understanding, bringing any given object or impression into the same class with any number of other objects or impression, by means of some character or characters common to them all.

Congregate

Cold congregates all bodies.

Consequence

Link follows link by necessary consequence.

Contrariant

The struggles of contrariant factions.

Copper

All in a hot and copper sky.

Coördinate

It has neither coordinate nor analogon; it is absolutely one.

Corporeity

Those who deny light to be matter, do not therefore deny its corporeity.

Cramp

Care being taken not to add any of the cramp reasons for this opinion.

Cranioscopist

It was found of equal dimension in a literary man whose skull puzzied the cranioscopists.

Cross

If two individuals of distinct races cross, a third is invariably produced different from either.

Cult

That which was the religion of Moses is the ceremonial or cult of the religion of Christ.

Death

And round about in reel and rout, The death fires danced at night.

Delicious

Some delicious landscape.

Digest

I never can digest the loss of most of Origin's works.

Dip

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out.

Dirgeful

Soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind.

Disharmony

A disharmony in the different impulses that constitute it [our nature].

Disparate

Connecting disparate thoughts, purely by means of resemblances in the words expressing them.

Dividuous

He so often substantiates distinctions into dividuous, selfsubsistent.

Divinity

Divinity is essentially the first of the professions.

Drift

We drifted o'er the harbor bar.

Dupe

Ne'er have I duped him with base counterfeits.

Encysted

The encysted venom, or poison bag, beneath the adder's fang.

End

When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end.

Enunciate

The terms in which he enunciates the great doctrines of the gospel.

Epigrammatizer

Epigrammatizers of our English prose style.

Epizeuxis

Alone, alone, all all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea.

Eristic

A specimen of admirable special pleading in the court of eristic logic.

Etymon

Given as the etymon or genuine sense of the word.

Evacuate

Evacuate the Scriptures of their most important meaning.

Experience

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.

Extroitive

Their natures being almost wholly extroitive.

Fag

Read, fag, and subdue this chapter.

Faith

Faith, that is, fidelity, -- the fealty of the finite will and understanding to the reason.

Featurely

Featurely warriors of Christian chivalry.

Finific

The essential finific in the form of the finite.

Fit

A tongue of light, a fit of flame.

Flat

A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.

Flighty

Proofs of my flighty and paradoxical turn of mind.

Floor

Floored or crushed by him.

Fluxional

The merely human,the temporary and fluxional.

Fontal

From the fontal light of ideas only can a man draw intellectual power.

Futurition

Nothing . . . can have this imagined futurition, but as it is decreed.

Generalizable

Extreme cases are . . . not generalizable.

generalize

A mere conclusion generalized from a great multitude of facts.

Genius

Genius of the highest kind implies an unusual intensity of the modifying power.

Gentle

O sleep! it is a gentle thing.

Get

His chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.

Ghastly

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang.

Ghost

I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost.

Gore

The low stumps shall gore His daintly feet.

Gorgeous

Cloud-land, gorgeous land.

Graspless

From my graspless hand Drop friendship's precious pearls.

Groundling

No comic buffoon to make the groundlings laugh.

Gull

I'm not gulling him for the emperor's service.

Gutturize

For which the Germans gutturize a sound.

Herd

You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

Heterogeneity

The difference, indeed the heterogeneity, of the two may be felt.

Hexameter

Strongly it | bears us a- | long on | swelling and | limitless | billows, Nothing be- | fore and | nothing be- | hind but the | sky and the | ocean.

Hoar

Whose beard with age is hoar.

Hollo

And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo.

Horned

The horned moon with one bright star Within the nether tip.

Hypostasize

The pressed Newtonians . . . refused to hypostasize the law of gravitation into an ether.

Idiom

Sometimes we identify the words with the object -- though by courtesy of idiom rather than in strict propriety of language.

Idol

The idols of preconceived opinion.

Illaqueate

Let not the surpassing eloquence of Taylor dazzle you, nor his scholastic retiary versatility of logic illaqueate your good sense.

Imaginative

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

Imbrangle

Physiology imbrangled with an inapplicable logic.

Implement

Genius must have talent as its complement and implement.

Inappellability

The inappellability of the councils.

Increment

A nation, to be great, ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself.

Induration

A certain induration of character had arisen from long habits of business.

Intelligible

The intelligible forms of ancient poets.

Introsusception

The person is corrupted by the introsusception of a nature which becomes evil thereby.

Inturbidate

The confusion of ideas and conceptions under the same term painfully inturbidates his theology.

Knell

Each matin bell, the baron saith, Knells us back to a world of death.

Lethargize

All bitters are poison, and act by stilling, and depressing, and lethargizing the irritability.

Line

He is uncommonly powerful in his own line, but it is not the line of a first-rate man.

Lonesome

Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread.

Madman

When a man mistakes his thoughts for person and things, he is mad. A madman is properly so defined.

Manner

I bid thee say, What manner of man art thou?

Mass

But mass them together and they are terrible indeed.

Mean

You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements.

Meander

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran.

Measureless

Where Alf, the sacred river ran, Through canyons measureless to man, Down to a hidden sea.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics are [is] the science which determines what can and what can not be known of being, and the laws of being, a priori.

Moving

I sang an old moving story.

Nation

A nation is the unity of a people.

Near

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared, and neared.

Nimiety

There is a nimiety, a too-muchness, in all Germans.

No

I am perplx'd and doubtful whether or no I dare accept this your congratulation.

No! Nay, Heaven forbid.

Nonage

The human mind . . . was still in its nonage.

Objectize

In the latter, as objectized by the former, arise the emotions and affections.

Omnify

Omnify the disputed point into a transcendent, and you may defy the opponent to lay hold of it.

Ordonnance

Their dramatic ordonnance of the parts.

Organization

What is organization but the connection of parts in and for a whole, so that each part is, at once, end and means?

Painted

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

Pass

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed.

Peer

As if through a dungeon grate he peered.

Penance

Quoth he, “The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.”

Personality

Personality is individuality existing in itself, but with a nature as a ground.

Philosopheme

This, the most venerable, and perhaps the most ancient, of Grecian myths, is a philosopheme.

Picture

My eyes make pictures when they are shut.

Piece

His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world.

Plebification

You begin with the attempt to popularize learning . . . but you will end in the plebification of knowledge.

Poetry

For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.

Poison

Whispering tongues can poison truth.

Processive

Because it is language, -- ergo, processive.

Productivity

Not indeed as the product, but as the producing power, the productivity.

Proper

Those high and peculiar attributes . . . which constitute our proper humanity.

Propound

It is strange folly to set ourselves no mark, to propound no end, in the hearing of the gospel.

Prose

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry, that is; prose -- words in their best order; poetry -- the best order.

Quiddity

We laugh at the quiddities of those writers now.

Rampart

Those grassy hills, those glittering dells, Proudly ramparted with rocks.

Ratiocinative

The ratiocinative meditativeness of his character.

Reason

By the pure reason I mean the power by which we become possessed of principles.

The sense perceives; the understanding, in its own peculiar operation, conceives; the reason, or rationalized understanding, comprehends.

Redintegrate

The English nation seems obliterated. What could redintegrate us again?

Reliable

The best means, and most reliable pledge, of a higher object.

Remanence

The remanence of the will in the fallen spirit.

Rememberable

The whole vale of Keswick is so rememberable.

Renascence

Read the Phœnix, and see how the single image of renascence is varied.

Reptile

And dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men.

Residentiary

The residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the favored spot, . . . will discover that both have been there.

Retiary

Scholastic retiary versatility of logic.

Retrusion

In virtue of an endless remotion or retrusion of the constituent cause.

Revalescence

Would this prove that the patient's revalescence had been independent of the medicines given him?

Reverence

Reverence, which is the synthesis of love and fear.

Reviviscence

In this age we have a sort of reviviscence, not, I fear, of the power, but of a taste for the power, of the early times.

Right

There are no rights whatever, without corresponding duties.

Science

Shakespeare's deep and accurate science in mental philosophy.

Scritch

Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch.

Self-examinant

The humiliated self-examinant feels that there is evil in our nature as well as good.

Sequela

Sequelae, or thoughts suggested by the preceding aphorisms.

Sere

But with its sound it shook the sails That were so thin and sere.

Service

The outward service of ancient religion, the rites, ceremonies, and ceremonial vestments of the old law.

Set

Every incident sets him thinking.

Shrink

All the boards did shrink.

Sigh

And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge.

Silly

The silly buckets on the deck.

Sinuous

Gardens bright with sinuous rills.

Skinny

He holds him with a skinny hand.

Slimy

Slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

Snuffle

This dread sovereign, Breath, in its passage, gave a snort or snuffle.

Soar

This apparent soar of the hooded falcon.

Somnial

The somnial magic superinduced on, without suspending, the active powers of the mind.

Sophistry

The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in usig a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion.

Sovran

On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc.

specific

In fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.

Spice

So much of the will, with a spice of the willful.

Stay

Lord Liverpool is the single stay of this ministry.

Steady

Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel.

Subsidiary

They constituted a useful subsidiary testimony of another state of existence.

Substantiate

Observation is, in turn, wanted to direct and substantiate the course of experiment.

Subtile

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtile, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature. The genius of the Italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, but not subtile; hence what they think to be humorous, is merely witty.

Sundry

Every church almost had the Bible of a sundry translation.

Superannuation

Slyness blinking through the watery eye of superannuation.

Superfetation

In then became a superfetation upon, and not an ingredient in, the national character.

Swelling

Rise to the swelling of the voiceless sea.

Symbol

A symbol is a sign included in the idea which it represents, e. g., an actual part chosen to represent the whole, or a lower form or species used as the representative of a higher in the same kind.

Ted

The tedded hay and corn sheaved in one field.

Templar

Solitary, family, and templar devotion.

Theorem

Not theories, but theorems (), the intelligible products of contemplation, intellectual objects in the mind, and of and for the mind exclusively.

Thick

He became the panegyrist, through thick and thin, of a military frenzy.

The nightmare Life-in-death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Thump

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down, one by one.

Tod

The ivy tod is heavy with snow.

Totality

The totality of a sentence or passage.

Tragedy

tragedy is poetry in its deepest earnest; comedy is poetry in unlimited jest.

Tricksy

he tricksy policy which in the seventeenth century passed for state wisdom.

Trilogy

On the Greek stage, a drama, or acted story, consisted in reality of three dramas, called together a trilogy, and performed consecutively in the course of one day.

Truth

Alas! they had been friends in youth, But whispering tongues can poison truth.

The truth depends on, or is only arrived at by, a legitimate deduction from all the facts which are truly material.

Turning

It is preached at every turning.

Ultimate

Those ultimate truths and those universal laws of thought which we can not rationally contradict.

Underhanded

Norway . . . might defy the world, . . . but it is much underhanded now.

Understanding

In its wider acceptation, understanding is the entire power of perceiving an conceiving, exclusive of the sensibility: the power of dealing with the impressions of sense, and composing them into wholes, according to a law of unity; and in its most comprehensive meaning it includes even simple apprehension.

Unhand

Hold off! unhand me, gray beard loon! Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

Unicity

The unicity we strive not to express, for that is impossible, but to designate by the nearest analogy.

Uprist

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head The glorious sun uprist.

Usufructuary

The ordinary graces bequeathed by Christ to his church, as the usufructuary property of all its members.

Valetudinarian

My feeble health and valetudinarian stomach.

Voiceful

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

Vulgarism

A fastidious taste will find offense in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call “slang,” which not a few of our writers seem to have affected.