Robert Browning Quotes

Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought. ~ Robert Browning

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. ~ Robert Browning

Why stay on the earth except to grow. ~ Robert Browning

Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? ~ Robert Browning

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

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. ~ Robert Browning

Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe, all were for me, in the kiss of one girl. ~ Robert Browning

The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's Is ? not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be ? but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means. ~ Robert Browning

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

Talent should minister to genius. ~ Robert Browning

Youth means love, Vows can't change nature, priests are only men. ~ Robert Browning

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

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

I say, the acknowledgment of God in ChristAccepted by thy reason, solves for theeAll questions in the earth and out of it,And has so far advanced thee to be wise. ~ Robert Browning

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us, Burns, Shelley, were with us. They watch from their graves! ~ Robert Browning

Less is more. -Robert Browning ~ Louisa Thomsen Brits

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. ~ Robert Browning

---all's love, yet all's law. ~ Robert Browning

Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired, - been happy. ~ Robert Browning

Night conceals a world but reveals a universe. ~ Robert Browning

You should not take a fellow eight years old and make him swear to never kiss the girls. ~ Robert Browning

Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock ... the cool silver shock of the plunge in a pool's living waters. ~ Robert Browning

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

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

Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I save and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again. ~ Robert Browning

Days decrease, / And autumn grows, autumn in everything. ~ Robert Browning

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her- Next time, herself!-not the trouble behind her ~ Robert Browning

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

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

Most progress is most failure. ~ Robert Browning

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

The poet Robert Browning caused considerable consternation by including the word twat in one of his poems, thinking it an innocent term. The work was Pippa Passes, written in 1841 and now remembered for the line "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world." But it also contains this disconcerting passage:
Then owls and bats
Cowls and twats
Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!
Browning had apparently somewhere come across the word twat
which meant precisely the same then as it does now
but pronounced it with a flat a and somehow took it to mean a piece of headgear for nuns. The verse became a source of twittering amusement for generations of schoolboys and a perennial embarrassment to their elders, but the word was never altered and Browning was allowed to live out his life in wholesome ignorance because no one could think of a suitably delicate way of explaining his mistake to him. ~ Bill Bryson

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

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

But God has a few of us to whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. ~ Robert Browning

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? ~ Robert Browning

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! ~ Robert Browning

Tis looking downward makes one dizzy. ~ Robert Browning

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold. ~ Robert Browning

Truth never hurt the teller. ~ Robert Browning

Mid the sharp, short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip at the end of its tube, blows out its great red bell,
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. ~ Robert Browning

Truth is truth howe'er it strike. ~ Robert Browning

On a day like today I am stung by the splendor of a sudden thought. ~ Robert Browning

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. ~ Robert Browning

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. ~ Robert Browning

A pretty woman's worth some pains to see. ~ Robert Browning

The heavens and earth stay as they were; my heart Beats as it beat: the truth remains the truth. ~ Robert Browning

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her. ~ Robert Browning

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. ~ Robert Browning

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

Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell! ~ Robert Browning

Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph? ~ Robert Browning

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! ~ Robert Browning

All service ranks the same with God,- With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first. ~ Robert Browning

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! ~ Robert Browning

'Tis well averred, A scientific faith's absurd. ~ Robert Browning

All service is the same with God. ~ Robert Browning

I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection ... I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretense of sparing me a twinge or two. ~ Robert Browning

Truth never hurts the teller. ~ Robert Browning

My sun sets to rise again. ~ Robert Browning

Outside are the storms and strangers: We - Oh, close, safe and warm sleep I and she, I and she ... ~ Robert Browning

Death was past, life not come: so he waited. ~ Robert Browning

O lyric love! half angel half bird ~ Robert Browning

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure. ~ Robert Browning

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. ~ Robert Browning

All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves. ~ Robert Browning

When is man strong until he feels alone? Colombe's Birthday ~ Robert Browning

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! ~ Robert Browning

How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can. And absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change. ~ Robert Browning

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. ~ Robert Browning

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declin'd, one more foot-path ontrod,
One more devil's triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! ~ Robert Browning

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

Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it, -so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present, condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense. ~ Robert Browning

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls. ~ Robert Browning

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened the next tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss ... ~ Robert Browning

One may do whatever one likes. In art, the only thing is, to make sure that one does like it. ~ Robert Browning

Generations pass while some tree stands, and old families last not three oaks. ~ Robert Browning

My whole life long I learn'd to love,
This hour my utmost art I prove.
And speak my passion - heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! ~ Robert Browning

But facts are facts and flinch not. ~ Robert Browning

What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity ~ Robert Browning

All scientific work is incomplete - whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, to postpone action that it appears to demand at a given time. Who knows, asks Robert Browning, but the world may end tonight? True, but on available evidence most of us make ready to commute on the 8:30 next day. ~ Austin Bradford Hill

There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, "Italy". ~ Robert Browning

Poetry, like love, is something we never truly say goodbye to. ~ Robert Browning

Make us happy and you make us good. ~ Robert Browning

God is the perfect poet. ~ Robert Browning

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower. ~ Robert Browning

I love to read, but all through school I hated it when books were pulled apart and analyzed. Winnie-the-pooh as a political allegory, that sort of thing. It never really worked for me. There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her that when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment."

'The Winter Sea ~ Susanna Kearsley

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

The moment eternal - just that and no more - When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet! ~ Robert Browning

Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also ~ Robert Browning

A lion may die of an ass's kick. ~ Robert Browning

All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul! ~ Robert Browning

I know a mount, the gracious Sun perceives
First when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and, vainly favored, it repays
The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze
By no change of its large calm front of snow. ~ Robert Browning

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! ~ Robert Browning

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

He guides me and the bird. In His good time! ~ Robert Browning

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

In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now. ~ Robert Browning

What if all's appearance? Is not outside seeming real as substance inside? Both are facts, so leave me dreaming. ~ Robert Browning