Coventry Patmore Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Coventry Patmore
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
I struck him, and dismiss'd
With hard words and unkiss'd,
—His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coventry Patmore
Some dish more sharply spiced than this
Milk-soup men call domestic bliss.

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

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

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

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 prevail
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

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

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