Coventry Patmore

"Grant me the power of saying things Too simple and too sweet for words!"

"Strong passions mean weak will, and he Who truly knows the strength and bliss Which are in love, will own with me No passion but a virtue 'tis."

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

"How amiable and innocent Her pleasure in her power to charm!"

"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!"

"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."

"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!"

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

"Bright looks reply, approving so Beauty's elixir vitæ, praise."

"What seems to us for us is true. The planet has no proper light, And yet when Venus is in view, No primal star is half so bright."

"The beauty in her lover's eyes Was admiration of her own."

"Without his knowledge he was won; Against his nature kept devout; She'll never tell him how 'twas done, And he will never find it out. If, sudden, he suspects her wiles, And hears her forging chain and trap, And looks, she sits in simple smiles, Her two hands lying in her lap. Her secret (privilege of the Bard, Whose fancy is of either sex), Is mine; but let the darkness guard Myst'ries that light would more perplex!"

"I saw you take his kiss!" "'Tis true." "O, modesty!" "'Twas strictly kept: He thought me asleep; at least, I knew He thought I thought he thought I slept."

"A woman is a foreign land."

"The bliss which woman's charms bespeak, "I've sought in many, found in none!" "In many 'tis in vain you seek "What can be found in only one."

"She is both heaven and the way."

"I vowed unvarying faith, and she To whom in full I pay that vow, Rewards me with variety Which men who change can never know."

"Why, having won her, do I woo? Because her spirit's vestal grace Provokes me always to pursue, But, spirit-like, eludes embrace.[…] Because though free of the outer court I am, this Temple keeps its shrine Sacred to Heaven; because, in short, She's not and never can be mine."

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

"The sunshine dreaming upon Salmon’s height Is not so sweet and white As the most heretofore sin-spotted Soul That darts to its delight Straight from the absolution of a faithful fight."

"Life is not life at all without delight."

"To have nought Is to have all things without care or thought!"

"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."

"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."

"None thrives for long upon the happiest dream."

"The flower of olden sanctities."

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

"All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence."

"If you try to simplify or pare off the superfluous from the minds and speech of most men, you will find that nothing is left. There is no simplicity in them, for there is no truth; truth and simplicity being, as Aquinas says, the same thing."

"Ther are not two sides to any question that really concerns a man, but only one, and this side only a fool can fail to see if he tries."

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

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

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

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

"The ardour chills us which we do not share."

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

"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."

"Pride does much and ill, Love does little and well."

"The impurity of ignorance is in none so manifest as in the devout; for they act on their ignorance, and fill themselves and others with miserable scruples and hard thoughts of God, and are as apt to call good evil as other men are to call evil good."

"A man may read Plato without clearly comprehending much of what he means. He cannot read him without becoming, in some degree, a changed man."

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

"The history of creation, regarded by some in very early ages as probably "mythical," has, indeed, been proved to be certainly so, but the myth includes teaching of much more significance to us than the supposed history, and everyone should be glad to discover this additional proof that the aim of the writers of Scripture was not to satisfy an idle curiosity about facts which do not concern us. The doctrine of evolution promises to be of very easy assimilation by the Church."

"Creation is nothing but a concerted piece, consisting of representative repetitions and variations of and harmonious commentaries upon the simple theme, God, […] divine contrapuntal music […]. If Beethoven and Bach are but senseless noise to the untrained ears of the boy who likes to hear Balfe on the street organ; you, though you may be capable of Beethoven and Bach, should hesitate to affirm that the sphere-music is not music because to your ears it is nothing but confusion. The first step towards becoming able to hear it is, to fix your attention upon the theme, which is God."

"Man, when he is in health and order of soul and body, is Mount Olympus, and in him, so long as he confesses that he is nothing in himself, are sensibly apparent the powers and majesties, beauties and beatitudes of all Gods and Goddesses."

"Woman is the sum and complex of all nature, and is the visible glory of God.[…] The "Word made Flesh" [John 1:14] is the word made Woman."

"Religion is not religion until it has become, not only natural, but so natural that nothing else seems natural in its presence."

"The difference between a commonly well-behaved woman and a high-bred lady consists in very small things—but what a difference it is!"

"God is the only reality, and we are real only so far as we are in His order, and He is in us."

"Ninety-nine men in a hundred are natural men, that is, beasts of prey; and it is mere insanity, in business matters, to deal with a stranger upon any other assumption than that he is a natural man, though we should veil our knowledge of the actual fact by a courteous recognition in words and manners of his better possibilities."

"Toleration, as it is now widely preached, may be a very one-sided bargain. It will not do to let falsehood and moral idiocy say to truth and honesty, "I will tolerate you if you will tolerate me.""

"The Catholic Church itself has been nearly killed by the infection of the puritanism of the Reformation."

"Good people and religious are the first to say, "He hath a devil" of any one whose way is widely different from and maybe greatly higher than their own."

"Nothingness is capacity, and night the opportunity of light."

"The dull and heavy hate of fools."

"The cloud that is light to Israel is darkness to Egypt."

"As the Word of God is God's image, so the word of man is his image, and "a man is known by his speech.""

"He is irrational, however well he may be able to reason, who does not clearly see that good is good and truth truth."

"Holy indignation is a proof that we should do the same thing ourselves, and easy tears are a certain sign of a hard heart."

"Nothing remains with man unless it is insinuated with some delight."

"The enthusiasm for goodness which shows that it is not the habit of the mind."

"Enough's a surfeit to the soul."

"Life's warp of Heaven and woof of Hell."

"Modern Philosophers, that wisely keep to sandy shallows, like shrimps, for fear of bigger fish."

"The proper study of mankind is woman."

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