“I claim, and will maintain my claim, to be sole judge of what is my duty; that which I hold to be such I hope I shall not neglect, but am determined never to betray.”

Declaring moral independence while accepting the obligations of conscience · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1829

• Duty
• Truth

“I do not feel fatherless—I often find my mind disputing with itself—What would my Father think of this?”

Describing how an inward conversation can preserve a dead parent’s presence · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 4 August 1834

• Death
• Memory

“It is a great mistake to suppose that education is to supply the place of natural gifts, or that natural gifts could dispense with education.”

Presenting education and natural ability as necessary complements · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 15 May 1843

• Childhood
• Education
• Truth