Quote#Death
How many of our virtues originate in the fear of Death — & that while…
Quote bySamuel Taylor Coleridge · 1772–1834
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to James Gillman (9 October 1825).
English (original)
How many of our virtues originate in the fear of Death — & that while we flatter ourselves that we are melting in Christian Sensibility over the sorrows of our human Brethren and Sisteren, we are in fact, tho' perhaps unconsciously, moved at the prospect of our own End — for who sincerely pities Sea-sickness, Toothache, or a fit of the Gout in a lusty Good-liver of 50?
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversly fram'd, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of All?
And this reft house is that the which he built, Lamented Jack!
O! I do love thee, meek Simplicity!
A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn.
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.