“So difficult is it to recommence any work of imagination after any interval.”

Noting how creative continuity can be broken by even a period of interruption · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 13 January 1838

• Art
• Poetry
• Time

“The very fact that the All good should have permitted such an intellect to fall into confusion, proves how little we ought to value ourselves on intellectual endowments, apart from our moral use of them.”

Placing moral use above intellectual brilliance as the true measure of worth · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 November 1836

• Morality
• Truth

“But no, my mother, I never ceased to love you, tho’ times have been, when that love was more remorse and agony, proclaiming aloud the duties which it gave no strength to perform.”

Confessing the painful distance between enduring love and neglected duty · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 10 October 1831

• Despair
• Duty
• Love