Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"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 awake, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?"

"that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith"

"Swans sing before they die— 't were no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing."

"For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shall thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and al things in himself Great universal teacher! He shall mold Thy spirit and by giving , make it ask."

"He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration."

"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."

"Poetry: the best words in the best order."

"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us."

"Silence does not always mark wisdom."

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

"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."