Quote

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

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Coventry Patmore
Age: 73 †
Born: 1823
Born: July 23
Died: 1896
Died: November 26
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Redbridge
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Books
Chapters
Reality
Understands
Plainest
Book
Obscure
Inexpressible
Must
Provided
Great
Proportion
Obscurity
Thinking
Thinks
Chapter
World
Bible
Influential
Fool
Realities

More quotes by Coventry Patmore

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What a Lover sees in the Beloved is the projected shadow of his own potential beauty in the eyes of God.
Coventry Patmore
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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.
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It is one thing to be blind, and another to be in darkness.
Coventry Patmore
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The promises of God are samples of what is promised as a handful of wheat is of the barn.
Coventry Patmore
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To have noughtIs to have all things without care or thought!
Coventry Patmore
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Life is not life at all without delight.
Coventry Patmore
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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.
Coventry Patmore
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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
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Every evil is some good spelt backwards, and in it the wise know how to read Wisdom.
Coventry Patmore
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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
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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
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The ardour chills us which we do not share.
Coventry Patmore
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Science is a line, art a superficies, and life or the knowledge of God, a solid.
Coventry Patmore
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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
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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
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The midge's wing beats to and fro A thousand times ere one can utter O.
Coventry Patmore
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A saint is a person who does almost everything any other decent person does, only somewhat better and with a totally different motive.
Coventry Patmore
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They who ask for no sign shall have many.
Coventry Patmore
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A woman is a foreign land.
Coventry Patmore
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Creation differs from subsistence only as the first leap of a fountain differs from its continuance.
Coventry Patmore