Samuel Taylor Coleridge quotes - page 12
Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to meter. The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement, or communication of truth; the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up for possibly, they say, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little superstition in this, yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give His precious blood for it therefore despise it not.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poetry, even that of the loftiest, and seemingly, that of the wildest odes, has a logic of its own as severe as that of science and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets... there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
