Patmore Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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. — Coventry Patmore

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

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

They who ask for no sign shall have many. — Coventry Patmore

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

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?' — Coventry Patmore

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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! — Coventry Patmore

The ardour chills us which we do not share. — Coventry Patmore

Great is his faith who dares believe his own eyes. — Coventry Patmore

To have noughtIs to have all things without care or thought! — Coventry Patmore

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. — Coventry Patmore

A woman is a foreign land. — Coventry Patmore

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence. — Coventry Patmore

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

Life is not life at all without delight. — Coventry Patmore

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

Nearly all of our disasters come from a few fools having the courage of their convictions. — Coventry Patmore

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. — Coventry Patmore

None thrives for long upon the happiest dream. — Coventry Patmore

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

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. — Coventry Patmore

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

The Incarnation, which is for traditional Christianity synonymous with the historical birth and earthly life of Christ, is for mystics of a certain type, not only this but also a perpetual Cosmic and personal process. It is an everlasting bringing forth, in the universe and also in the individual ascending soul, of the divine and perfect Life, the pure character of God, of which the one historical life dramatized the essential constituents. Hence the soul, like the physical embryo, resumes in its upward progress the spiritual life-history of the race. "The one secret, the greatest of all," says Patmore, is "the doctrine of the Incarnation, regarded not as an historical event which occurred two thousand years ago, but as an event which is renewed in the body of every one who is in the way to the fulfilment of his original destiny." 239 — Evelyn Underhill

To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light. — Coventry Patmore

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