Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

O Life,
How oft we throw it off and think, - 'Enough,
Enough of life in so much! - here's a cause
For rupture; - herein we must break with Life,
Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'
- And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes
And think all ended. - Then, Life calls to us
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,
Above us, or below us, or around .
Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed
To own our compensations than our griefs:
Still, Life's voice! - still, we make our peace with Life. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius. ~ Mary Russell Mitford

Since when was genius found respectable? ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks, held out in the smoke, like stars by day. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

O Earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!
O delved gold, the wader's heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God makes a silence through you all,
And giveth His beloved, sleep. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne,
And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
Is by thee only, whom I love alone. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforth in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Italy/Is one thing, England one. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me ... -toll
The silver iterance! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And friends, dear friends,
when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me, And gone my bier ye come to weep, Let One, most loving of you all, Say, Not a tear must o'er her fall; He giveth His beloved sleep. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father's name; Piled high, packed large,
where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning's dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The picture of helpless indolence she calls herself
sublimely helpless and impotent
I had done living I thought
Was ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones,
that there seemed no room for tears. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Art is much, but love is more ... ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Yet how proud we are,
In daring to look down upon ourselves! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love doesn't make the world go round, Love is what makes the ride worthwhile! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Children use the fist until they are of age to use the brain. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen." ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Whoever lives true life, will love true love. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Good aims not always make good books. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Light tomorrow with today. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We get no good by being ungenerous, even to a book, and calculating profits ... so much help by so much reading. it is rather when we gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth
'tis then we get the right good from the book. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Souls are gregarious in a sense, but no soul touches another, as a general rule. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning could write a poem two pages long. Could she have brought it to a music publisher? ~ Dorothy Fields

The Holy Night We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Anybody is qualified, according to everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chemistry and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka. But then these are more serious things. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning:
Would she have lost the poet's fire for the anguish of the burning?
The minstrel harp, for the strained string? tripod for the afflated
Woe, or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated? ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live while I write - it is life, for me. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Souls are dangerous things to carry straight through all the spilt saltpetre of this world. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Gaze up at the stars knowing that I see the same sky and wish the same sweet dreams. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Guess now who holds thee?" - "Death," I said. But, there, The silver answer rang, - "Not Death, but Love." - ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Better far
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means,
Than a sublime art frivolously. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Whatever's lost, it first was won. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My love for him was so exquisitely pure that if we all were capable of giving and receiving such a beautiful gift the world would be a far more brilliant place; I think we'd all be poets. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Much of the possibility of being cheerful comes from the faculty of throwing oneself beyond oneself ... ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let us be content to work To do the things we can, and not presume To fret because it's little. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God keeps a niche
In Heaven, to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces, and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty, glorified,
New Memnons singing in the great God-light. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I take her as God made her, and as men Must fail to unmake her, for my honoured wife. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A cheerful genius suits the times, / And all true poets laugh unquenchably / Like Shakespeare and the gods. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow But thinking of a wreath, ... I like such ivy; bold to leap a height 'Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too (And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The least flower, with brimming cup, may stand and share its dew drop with another near. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Get leave to work In this world,
'tis the best you get at all. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young;
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
Guess now who holds thee?
Death, I said, But, there,
The silver answer rang,
Not Death, but Love. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

New angel mine, unhoped for in the world! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies reviv'd, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river. ~ Browning Elizabeth Barrett

The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If Thou Must Love Me

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
'I love her for her smile - her look - her way
Of speaking gently, - for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day' -
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee - and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A woman cannot do the thing she ought, which means whatever perfect thing she can, in life, in art, in science, but she fears to let the perfect action take her part and rest there: she must prove what she can do before she does it,
prate of woman's rights, of woman's mission, woman's function, till the men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, A woman's function plainly is ... to talk. Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out: Disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough We once were lov'd, us'd
well enough, I think, we've far'd, my heart and I. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My future will not copy my fair past, I wrote that once. And, thinking at my side my ministering life-angel justified the word by his appealing look upcast to the white throne of God. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of they soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me ... ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely as for life and death -
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden of Eden. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

True knowledge comes only through suffering. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Nosegays! leave them for the waking,
Throw them earthward where they grew
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto.
Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I f thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say, I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way Of speaking gently ... for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and, certes, brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee-and love so wrought, May be unwrought so. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The world of books is still the world. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers? ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Foolishness and criticism are so apt, do so naturally go together! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The large white owl that with eye is blind, That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, Is carried away in a gust of wind. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I have done most of my talking by post of late years
as people shut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Truth outlives pain, as the soul does life. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The devil's most devilish when respectable. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love me sweet
With all thou art
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the Lightest part,
Love me in full Being. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

She lived, we'll say,
A harmless life, she called a
virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all
(But that she had not lived enough to know) ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Some people always sigh in thanking God. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning once observed poetically: "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. ~ Anita Moorjani

Two human loves make one divine. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all ... ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You were made perfectly to be loved and surely I have loved you in the idea of you my whole life long. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

He lives most life whoever breathes most air. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The wisest word man reaches is the humblest he can speak. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Unless you can feel when the song is done
No other is sweet in its rhythm;
Unless you can feel when left by one
That all men else go with him. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And trade is art, and art's philosophy,
In Paris. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The chances are that, being a woman, young,
And pure, with such a pair of large, calm eyes,
You write as well ... and ill ... upon the whole,
As other women. If as well, what then?
If even a little better,..still, what then?
We want the Best in art now, or no art. (L144-149) ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Did you think of that? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know. To cymbals, Romney. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What we call Life is a condition of the soul. And the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I heard an angel speak last night/And he said, "Write!" ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning