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Quotes from The Rod, the Root, and the Flower — Coventry Patmore

1823–1896 England

← All quotes by Coventry Patmore

23 quotes

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

The ardour chills us which we do not share.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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 evil good.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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."

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

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 thing.

The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Coventry Patmore (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.