Virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue.
There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice - patched, retreaded and approved for the road.
State are not made, nor patched; they grow; Grow slow through centuries of pain, And grow correctly in the main; But only grow by certain laws, Of certain bits in certain jaws.
History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.
Sin, that amends, is but patched with virtue.
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
You can make up a quarrel, but it will always show where it was patched.
She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head.
Is the human race a joke? Was it devised and patched together in a dull time when there was nothing important to do?
