“It is only by this judgment from ideals that we can, in anything, judge at once largely and accurately.”

On the value of ideals as standards for judgement · Lecture, Nature of Poetry, 1857

• Beauty
• Truth

“The temper in which we perceive a fact to be accounted for is very different from that in which we construct a theory to explain it.”

Distinguishing observation from the theories we build around it · Lecture, Nature of Poetry, 1857

• Truth

“The great secrets of life lie too far within, not too far beyond, our mental focus to be seen.”

Locating life's deepest mysteries within ordinary consciousness rather than beyond human reach · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta CX

• Truth

“All men are led to Heaven by their own loves; but these must first be sacrificed.”

Expressing Patmore's recurring belief that love must be transformed rather than extinguished · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta CVI

• Faith
• Love

“Nations die of softening of the brain, which, for a long time, passes for softening of the heart.”

Warning against confusing sentimentality with genuine moral feeling · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta CI

• Truth

“What a Lover sees in the Beloved is the projected shadow of his own potential beauty in the eyes of God.”

Interpreting romantic idealisation as a glimpse of unrealised spiritual beauty · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XCVI

• Beauty
• Faith
• Love

“A dark, conspicuous, and insoluble enigma is the source of all love, and of the celestial decorum of the universe.”

Making mystery rather than explanation the foundation of love · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XCV

• Faith
• Love

“The most pregnant passages of Scripture, of the wise ancients, and of great poets are those which seem to you to have no meaning, or an absurd one.”

Defending difficulty and paradox as signs that a text may contain deeper significance · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XCIV

• Poetry
• Truth

“The bliss of heaven, which many have attained here, is the synthesis of absolute content and infinite desire.”

Defining fulfilment as the coexistence of complete contentment and limitless desire · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XCII

• Faith
• Joy

“Direct teaching cannot go much beyond pointing out the conditions of perception, and the direction in which it is to be looked for.”

Treating genuine understanding as something discovered rather than simply transmitted · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXXXIV

• Truth

“All the world is secretly maddened by the mystery of love, and continually seeks its solution everywhere but where it is to be found.”

Presenting love as a universal mystery that humanity persistently misunderstands · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXXXIII

• Love

“Great contemplatives are infallible, so long as they only affirm. When they begin to prove, any fool can confute them.”

Distinguishing intuitive spiritual perception from attempts at formal demonstration · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXXIII

• Faith
• Truth

“That which you confess to-day, you shall perceive to-morrow.”

Suggesting that trust may precede understanding · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXIX

• Faith
• Hope
• Truth

“It is easy to love when we feel that we are worthy of love, impossible otherwise. A perfect intention, failing only through ignorance, is alone worthiness.”

Connecting the ability to love with a person's sense of moral worth · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXVIII

• Love
• Truth

“The more wild and incredible your desire the more willing and prompt God is in fulfilling it, if you will have it so.”

Celebrating spiritual aspiration that refuses to be limited by probability · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LXIII

• Faith
• Hope

“A moment's fruition of a true felicity is enough and eternity not too much.”

Suggesting that genuine happiness carries within it a desire for permanence · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LV

• Joy
• Time

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

Using a vivid natural image to portray creation as a continuously sustained act · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LII

• Faith
• Nature

“Delight is pleasanter than pleasure; peace more delightful than delight.”

Placing inward peace above more immediate forms of pleasure · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta LI

• Joy

“Divine favours are forced upon the Soul in proportion to her detachment from them.”

Expressing the mystical paradox that relinquishment makes reception possible · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XLV

• Faith

“The sweetness even of self-denial wears with time, and becomes tediously easy.”

Noting how even difficult disciplines can become comfortable habits · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XLIII

• Faith

“Men would never offend God, if they knew how ready He is to forgive them.”

Connecting moral transformation with confidence in forgiveness · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XLII

• Faith
• Hope

“God usually answers our prayers according rather to the measure of His own magnificence than to that of our asking.”

Suggesting that fulfilment may exceed the limits of what people know how to request · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XLI

• Faith
• Hope

“God loves the soul which desires perfection, as a Lover always does, that is as if she were already perfect.”

Presenting divine love as recognising the possibility of perfection before its achievement · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XXXII

• Faith
• Love

“Ask abundantly, for the measure of your asking shall be that of your receiving.”

Encouraging largeness of hope rather than timid expectation · The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, Aurea Dicta XXX

• Faith
• Hope