Coventry Patmore Quotations

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.