We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the course appetite of bigotry and self-love.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? Three treasures, love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath; And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that greatness and goodness are ultimate goals in life rather than mere tools for achieving something else.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge expresses the idea that true greatness and goodness are ends in themselves, not mere means to an end. He suggests that a truly great person possesses treasures such as love, light, and calm thoughts, which serve to enrich their life and bring them closer to their true self, their Maker, and ultimately, to the acceptance of mortality embodied by the angel of Death.
Themes
GreatnessGoodnessLifeTreasuresPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire discussions about the true meaning of greatness during a leadership seminar.
More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
All quotes →Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Often do the spirits stride on before the event; and in today already walks tomorrow.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Mr. Lyell's system of geology is just half the truth, and no more. He affirms a great deal that is true, and he denies a great deal which is equally true; which is the general characteristic of all systems not embracing the whole truth.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
Similar quotes
An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.
Friedrich ListRead
The secret of praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning.
Leonard RavenhillRead
For, dear me, why abandon a belief, Merely because it ceases to be true, Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt, It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Robert FrostRead
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success.
James A. BaldwinRead
It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.
Etienne De La BoetieRead
Peace and not war is the father of all things.
Ludwig Von MisesRead