Home / Topics / Coleridge Quotes

Coleridge Quotes

Browse 3 quotes about Coleridge.

Coleridge Quotes

“The affection of old age is one of the greatest consolations of humanity. I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged.”

Children Death Poetry Youth Aging Shakespeare Coleridge

Book:Coleridge on Shakespeare

Source: Coleridge on Shakespeare

“Coleridge was one of those unhappy persons-Donne, I suspect, was such another-of whom one might say, that if they had not been poets, they might have made something of their lives, might even have had a career; or conversely, that if they had not been interested in so many things, crossed by such diverse passions, they might have been great poets. It was better for Coleridge, as poet, to read books of travel and exploration than to read books of metaphysics and political economy. He did genuinely want to read books of metaphysics and political economy, for he had a certain talent for such subjects. But for a few years he had been visited by the Muse (I know of no poet to whom this hackneyed metaphor is better applicable) and thenceforth was a haunted man; for anyone who has ever been visited by the Muse is thenceforth haunted. He had no vocation for the religious life, for there again somebody like a Muse, or a much higher being, is to be invoked, he was condemned to know that the little poetry he had written was worth more than all he could do with the rest of his life. The author of Biographia Litteraria was already a ruined man. Sometimes, however, to be a 'ruined man' is Itself a vocation.”

Poetry Failure Donne Coleridge The Muse

Book:The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

Source: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“In some ways Coleridge committed a form of artistic suicide attempting to solve the complicated mystery he saw in the flocking starlings. In a harrowing self-indictment he later described himself as a 'starling self-encaged, & always in the moult, & my whole note is, tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow.' Slowly losing confidence in himself as a poet, he attempted to become an all-knowing philosopher-king. He ignored the simpler images central to his life as a poet and attempted to create an equally complex system of philosophy that would hold it all in place. He eventually produced the Biographia Literaria, an immense tome, impressive in learning, thought and scholarship, but in my heretical opinion as an unrepentant lyric poet, a tragedy of wasted effort and a loss to all of us compared to the vital geniums of his early poetry. This happens in a parallel fashion to many skilled managers who convince themselves that the organization's vision is their own vision. They suddenly find themselves in positions that are seen as rewards for rather than consummations of their skill; their natural abilities may not translate into the job they have been promoted to, nor may their interest, but because of the pressure of the career path, they may convince themselves into a phantom life under an overarching system that includes everything except their own desires.”

Philosophy Poetry Professional Development Organizational Development Coleridge

Book:The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America

Source: The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America