Robert Browning Quotes

Good to forgive, Best to forget.

If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.

Life In Love

Escape me?
Never---
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,---
So the chace takes up one's life ' that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me---
Ever
Removed!

Thought is the soul of act.

Sorrow, the heart must bear,
Sits in the home of each, conspicuous there.
Many a circumstance, at least,
Touches the very breast.
For those
Whom any sent away,
he knows:
And in the live man's stead,
Armor and ashes reach
The house of each.

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before Love, - Only sleep.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! ... Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

When I love most, love is disguised. In hate; and when hate is surprised, in love, then I hate most.

What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me.

Truth never hurts the teller.

Sappho survives, because we sing her songs; And Eschylus, because we read his plays!

Days decrease, / And autumn grows, autumn in everything.

How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark Autumn evenings come,
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!
I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart.

The peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head.

There is to truer truth attainable to man than comes of music.

As is your sort of mind, So is your sort of search: You will find what you desire.

I know what I want and what I might gain, and yet, how profitless to know.

What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.

Smiling the boy fell dead.

I am grown peaceful as old age tonight.

The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride.

Is your love for the Lord sufficient to give all your time and talents to his work?

That great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it.

There are those who believe something, and therefore will tolerate nothing; and on the other hand, those who tolerate everything, because they believe nothing.

What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

Stand still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night you'll fail us: when afar You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star!

I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency.

One and all
We lend an ear-nay, Science takes thereto-
Encourages the meanest who has racked
Nature until he gains from her some fact,
To state what truth is from his point of view,
Mere pin-point though it be: since many such
Conduce to make a whole, she bids our friend
Come forward unabashed and haply lend
His little life-experience to our much
Of modern knowledge.

Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.

Other heights in other lives, God willing.

If you can sit at set of sun And count the deeds that you have done And counting find oneself-denying act, one word That eased the heart of him that heard. One glance most kind, Which fell like sunshine where he went, Then you may count that day well spent.

Any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose.

All poetry is putting the infinite within the finite.

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!

I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds
All the world's loves in its unworldliness.

When the liquor's out, why clink the cannikin?

This world's no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.

Lofty designs must close in like effects.

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph.

All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt: We called the chess-board white-we call it black.

You never know what life means till you die; even throughout life, tis death that makes life live.

I.. know what I do, and am unmoved by men's blame, or their praise either.

You'll love me yet!
and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,
From seeds of April's sowing.
I plant a heartful now: some seed
At least is sure to strike,
And yield
what you'll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, may be, like.
You'll look at least on love's remains,
A grave's one violet:
Your look?
that pays a thousand pains.
What's death? You'll love me yet!

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. The honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist.

My sun sets to rise again.

The sea heaves up, hangs loaded o'er the land, Breaks there, and buries its tumultuous strength.

The best way to excape his ire Is, not to seem too happy.

Mothers, wives and maids, These be the tools with which priests manage men.

Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

The power of the night, the press of the storm, the post of the foe; where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, yet, the strong man must go.

I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.

Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet.

Robert Browning's childhood was passed in an unusually serene and happy home. In Development he tells how, at five years of age, he was made to understand the main facts of the Trojan War by his father's clever use of the cat, the dogs, the pony in the stable, and the page-boy, to impersonate the heroes of that ancient conflict.

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

Genius has somewhat of the infantine; but of the childish not a touch or taint.

The world and life's too big to pass for a dream

The great mind knows the power of gentleness.

Escape me? Never, beloved! While I am I, and you are you.

This could but have happened once,- And we missed it, lost it forever.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness; ... and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.

There is no truer truth obtainable by Man than comes of music

What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what's best for men?
Are you - -poor, sick, old ere your time - -
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.

Ignorance is not innocence but sin.

Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

So, I soberly laid my last plan
To extinguish the man.
Round his creep-hole, with never a break
Ran my fires for his sake;
Over-head, did my thunder combine
With my under-ground mine:
Till I looked from my labour content
To enjoy the event.

Oh never star Was lost here but it rose afar.

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this ye call A "great event" should come to pass From that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!

A face to lose youth for, to occupy age With the dream of, meet death with.

The Best Is Yet To Be

Once more on my adventure brave and new.

Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed As, God be thanked! I do not.

Who was a queen and loved a poet once
Humpbacked, a dwarf? ah, women can do that!

I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.

I give the fight up: let there be an end, a privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.

Let friend trust friends, and love demand love's like.

You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, If faith o'ercomes doubt.

"With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart" once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!

I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way. But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!

What's the earth
With all its art, verse, music, worth
Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?

God is the perfect poet.

Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through Into eternity, our due? No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?

Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also

In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.

Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

Are there not, dear Michael, Two points in the adventure of the diver,- One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge; One, when a prince he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge.

I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

A minute of success pays for years of failure.

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.

So, fall asleep love, loved by me ... for I know love, I am loved by thee.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!

The body sprang At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,-no!

grow old with me. the best is yet to be.
the last of life for which the first was made.

Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true.