The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Aids to Reflection’ (1825) ‘Moral and Religious Aphorisms’ no. 25
Until you understand a writer’s ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.
‘Biographia Literaria’ (1817) ch. 12
The primary imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human
Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am.
‘Biographia Literaria’ (1817) ch. 13
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
‘Biographia Literaria’ (1817) ch. 14
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare. Footnote. a phrase which I have borrowed from a Greek
monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople.
‘Biographia Literaria’ (1817) ch. 15
The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant’s shoulder to mount on.
‘The Friend’ (1818) vol. 2 ‘On the Principles of Political Knowledge’.
Iago’s soliloquy—the motive-hunting of motiveless malignity.
‘The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’ (1836) bk. 2 ‘Notes on the Tragedies of Shakespeare:
Othello’
Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, &c., if they
could; they have tried their talents at one or at the other, and have failed; therefore they turn
critics.
‘Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton’ (delivered 1811-12, published 1856) lecture 1
You abuse snuff! Perhaps it is the final cause of the human nose.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 4 January 1823
To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 27 April 1823 (on Edmund Kean)
Prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 12 July 1827
The man’s desire is for the woman; but the woman’s desire is rarely other than for the desire of
the man.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 23 July 1827
Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be good sense at all events;
just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house, at least.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 9 May 1830
Swift was anima Rabelaisii habitans in sicco—the soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 15 June 1830
In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 5 October 1830
That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery fourin-hand
round the corner of nonsense.
‘Table Talk’ (1835) 20 January 1834
Shakespeare...is of no age—nor of any religion, or party or profession. The body and substance