Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes
For more than a thousand years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in hand with civilization science, law; in short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation of the species, always supporting and often leading he way.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Statesman's Manual; or The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon. Gale and Fenner, 1816, p. 71.
This is a very important quotation as Kingsley was a precursor of Karl Marx in claiming that religion was used as opium for suppression of people. See Marx {624064} It is probable that Marx had read Kingsley’s quotation but there is no way of knowing for sure. What is certain is that Marx did not originate the idea.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief". He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism.
