Coventry Patmore Quotes

To one who waits, all things reveal themselves so long as you have the courage not to deny in the darkness what you have seen in the light.

A saint is a person who does almost everything any other decent person does, only somewhat better and with a totally different motive.

One fool will deny more truth in half an hour than a wise man can prove in seven years.

Ah, whither shall a maiden flee, When a bold youth so swift pursues, And siege of tenderest courtesy, With hope perseverant, still renews!

The woman is the man's glory, and she naturally delights in the praises which are assurances that she is fulfilling her function; and she gives herself to him who succeeds in convincing her that she, of all others, is best able to discharge it for him. A woman without this kind of "vanity" is a monster.

Great is his faith who dares believe his own eyes.

It is one thing to be blind, and another to be in darkness.

A woman is a foreign land.

The sunshine dreaming upon Salmon's heightIs not so sweet and whiteAs the most heretofore sin-spotted SoulThat darts to its delightStraight from the absolution of a faithful fight.

Ask abundantly, for the measure of your asking shall be that of your receiving.

The promises of God are samples of what is promised; as a handful of wheat is of the barn.

Every evil is some good spelt backwards, and in it the wise know how to read Wisdom.

Uncommon things must be said in common words.

Creation differs from subsistence only as the first leap of a fountain differs from its continuance.

The ardour chills us which we do not share.

A moment's fruition of a true felicity is enough and eternity not too much.

Fortunately for themselves and the world, nearly all men are cowards and dare not act on what they believe. Nearly all our disasters come of a few fools having the "courage of their convictions."

Books are influential in proportion to their obscurity, provided that the obscurity be that of inexpressible Realities. The Bible is the most obscure book in the world. He must be a great fool who thinks he understands the plainest chapter of it.

The more wild and incredible your desire, the more willing and prompt God is in fulfilling it, if you will have it so.

The midge's wing beats to and fro A thousand times ere one can utter O.

How light the touches are that kiss the music from the chords of life!

Love wakes men, once a lifetime each; They lift their heavy lids, and look; And, lo, what one sweet page can teach They read with joy, then shut the book.

Kind souls, you wonder why, love you, When you, you wonder why, love none We love, Fool, for the good we do, Not that which unto us is done!

Ah, wasteful woman, she who may On her sweet self set her own price, Knowing man cannot choose but pay, How has she cheapened paradise; How given for nought her priceless gift, How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, Which, spent with due respective thrift, Had made brutes men and men divine.

Let me love Thee so that the honour, riches, and pleasures of the world may seem unworthy even of hatred - may not even be encumbrances.

Life is not life at all without delight.

For want of me the world's course will not fail;When all its work is done the lie shall rot;The truth is great and shall prevailWhen none cares whether it prevail or not.

Those who know God know that it is quite a mistake to suppose that there are only five senses.

The modern Agnostic improves upon the ancient by adding "I don't care" to "I don't know.

The moods of love are like the wind, And none knows whence or why they rise.

What a Lover sees in the Beloved is the projected shadow of his own potential beauty in the eyes of God.

Then sleep the seasons, full of might; While slowly swells the pod, And rounds the peach, and in the night The mushroom bursts the sod. The winter comes: the frozen rut Is bound with silver bars; the white drift heaps against the hut; and night is pierced with stars.

They who ask for no sign shall have many.

To have noughtIs to have all things without care or thought!

I drew my bride, beneath the moon,Across my threshold; happy hour!But, ah, the walk that afternoonWe saw the water-flags in flower!

O, Heart, remember thee That Man is none, Save One.

Science is a line, art a superficies, and life or the knowledge of God, a solid.

The Spirit of man is like a kite, which rises by means of those very forces which seem to oppose its rise; the tie that joins it to the earth, the opposing winds of temptation, and the weight of earth-born affections which it carries with it into the sky.

All the love and joy that a man has ever received in perception is laid up in him as the sunshine of a hundred years is laid up in the bole of the oak.

Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.

If we may credit certain hints contained in the lives of the saints, love raises the spirit above the sphere of reverence and worship into one of laughter and dalliance: a sphere in which the soul says: 'Shall I, a gnat which dances in Thy ray, Dare to be reverent?'

None thrives for long upon the happiest dream.

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.