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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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Coventry Patmore
Age: 73 †
Born: 1823
Born: July 23
Died: 1896
Died: November 26
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Redbridge
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Lives
Saint
Dances
Spirit
Raises
Hints
Certain
Dare
Contained
May
Credit
Sphere
Soul
Laughter
Saints
Love
Worship
Spheres
Gnat
Says
Rays
Gnats
Shall
Reverence
Reverent

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.
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It is one thing to be blind, and another to be in darkness.
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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.
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To have noughtIs to have all things without care or thought!
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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!
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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.
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They who ask for no sign shall have many.
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Life is not life at all without delight.
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The more wild and incredible your desire, the more willing and prompt God is in fulfilling it, if you will have it so.
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The ardour chills us which we do not share.
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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.
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The midge's wing beats to and fro A thousand times ere one can utter O.
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O, Heart, remember thee That Man is none, Save One.
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A woman is a foreign land.
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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.
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Ask abundantly, for the measure of your asking shall be that of your receiving.
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Science is a line, art a superficies, and life or the knowledge of God, a solid.
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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.
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Every evil is some good spelt backwards, and in it the wise know how to read Wisdom.
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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