Coventry Patmore

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 …

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

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 …

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

The ardour chills us which we do not share.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 …

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.

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

The flower of olden sanctities.

None thrives for long upon the happiest dream.

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.

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.

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

Life is not life at all without delight.

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.

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

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

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.

She is both heaven and the way.