Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher. He was a major poet of the Romantic Movement. He is also noted for his prose works on literature, religion, and the organization of society.
Born in Ottery St. Mary, England, Coleridge was the youngest of ten children. He studied at Cambridge, but he struggled there and dropped out to join the cavalry. He did poorly as a soldier, and his brothers got him a discharge on the grounds of insanity.
Coleridge’s first major poem, “The Eolian Harp,” from Poems on Various Subjects (1796,) announced his unique contribution to the growth of English romanticism.
Coleridge is renowned for his productive friendship with William Wordsworth. They both liked to compose their poetry while walking, so they took long walks together in England’s Lake District throughout their first year of friendship. Coleridge wrote his most famous poems: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan,” “Christabel,” and “Frost at Midnight.” This annus mirabilis (July 1797 to July 1798) culminated in their joint publication of Lyrical Ballads 1798. It marked the start of English Romanticism.
Within a few years, Coleridge’s life began to crumble. He became addicted to opium—he lost his creativity and ruined his friendship with Wordsworth. He spent most of the last 18 years of his life in comparative peace and steady literary activity. He wrote a great book of literary criticism called Biographia Literaria (1817,) and Lay Sermons (1817,) Aids to Reflection (1825,) and The Constitution of Church and State (1829.) However, he failed to complete most of his ambitious projects, including voluminous works on geography, the history of English prose, a translation of Goethe’s Faust, a musical about Adam and Eve, a history of logic, a history of German metaphysics, a study of witchcraft, and an encyclopedia.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where virtue is, sensibility is its ornament and becoming attire; but it, and all the amiable qualities may become, and too often have become the panders of vice, and the instruments of seduction.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The first idea of method is a progressive transition from one step to another in any course.—If in the right course, it will be the true method; if in the wrong, we cannot hope to progress.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Is duty a mere sport, or an employ! Life an entrusted talent or a toy.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Duty
A rogue is a roundabout fool.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Poets, Poetry
Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are beasts; the first and wisest of beasts it may be; but still beasts. We only differ in degree, and not in kind; just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of the materialists, we are not of the same kind as beasts; and this also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of a soul within us that makes the difference.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Soul
No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Humor
And though thou notest from thy safe recess old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air love them for what they are; nor love them less, because to thee they are not what they were.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Friends and Friendship
Our own heart, and not other men’s opinion, forms our true honor.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
There is in every human countenance, either a history or a prophecy, which must sadden, or at least soften, every reflecting observer.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Face
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Poets, Poetry, Words, Order
He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Christianity, Christians
I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in his head or heart, somewhere or other.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Zeal
The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments, and sympathises with their just feelings.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Argument
Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Sleep
All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Sympathy, Selfishness
The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are—1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to acquirers; and, 3. Hope to all.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Government
It is not enough that we swallow truth: we must feed upon it, as insects do on the leaf, till the whole heart be colored by its qualities, and show its food in every fibre.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Truth
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Wonder, Abundance, Love
Good and bad men are less than they seem.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Goodness
A poet ought not to pick nature’s pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Nature, Poetry
There is nothing insignificant—nothing.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Trifles
Fear gives sudden instincts of skill.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
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 is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Force yourself to reflect on what you read, paragraph by paragraph.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Reading
An orphan’s curse would drag to hell, a spirit from on high; but oh! more horrible than that, is a curse in a dead man’s eye!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Dying, Death
Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a life and a living process.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Christianity
He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Prayer
This is the course of every evil deed, that, propagating still it brings forth evil.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Evils
Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Topics: Style
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