Coventry Patmore

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

The proper study of mankind is woman.

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

Life's warp of Heaven and woof of Hell.

Enough's a surfeit to the soul.

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

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

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

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

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."

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

The dull and heavy hate of fools.

Nothingness is capacity, and night the opportunity of light.

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.

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

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."

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 …

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.