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
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
Interpretation
This quote describes the grandeur of a visionary palace and the natural wonders surrounding it.
The quote from Coleridge's poem paints a vivid picture of an extravagant pleasure-dome decreed by Kubla Khan, set amidst a fantastical landscape of rivers and caverns. It embodies themes of creativity, imagination, and the sublime beauty of nature, illustrating the power of human vision to create extraordinary spaces that evoke wonder and awe.
In practice
In a poetry reading, one could use this quote to illustrate the relationship between imagination and the natural world.
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.
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
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.
Often do the spirits stride on before the event; and in today already walks tomorrow.
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.
To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth.
The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
When a book is alive, really alive, you feel it. You put it to your ear here, and you feel it breathe, sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, just like a person, a little person.
There's only two givens with choosing acting as a profession: one is you will always be unemployed, always, and it doesn't matter how much money you make, you're still always going to be unemployed; and that you have no power.
I don't think anything I've written has been done in under six or eight drafts. Usually it takes me a few years to write a book. 'World's Fair' was an exception. It seemed to be a particularly fluent book as it came. I did it in seven months. I think what happened in that case is that God gave me a bonus book.
Whoever wants to know something about me - as an artist which alone is significant - they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.
All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.
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