Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

215 Sourced Quotes

Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I take it for pure magic, this life of mine. Surely nobody was ever so happy before.

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — toll
The silver iterance! — only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Books are men of higher stature,
And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Yes," I answered you last night;
"No," this morning, sir, I say:
Colors seen by candlelight Will not look the same by day.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Colors seen by candle-light
Will not look the same by day.

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
The devil's most devilish when respectable.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I do distrust the poet who discerns
No character or glory in his times.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!
No mortal grief deserves that crown.
O supreme Love, chief misery,
The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!' For us, — whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done,
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–'
'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief)
'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,
And none was left to love in all the world.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
'Yes,' I answered you last night;
'No,' this morning, sir, I say.
Colours seen by candle-light
Will not look the same by day.

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair;
And they heard the words it said,—
"Pan is dead! great Pan is dead!
Pan, Pan is dead!"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What is genius—but the power of expressing a new individuality?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A man may love a woman perfectly, and yet by no means ignorantly maintain a thousand women have not larger eyes. Enough that she alone has looked at him with eyes that, large or small, have won his soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble....

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers—
And that cannot stop their tears.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since I first heard the footsteps of thy soul.

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"There is no God," the foolish saith, But none, "There is no sorrow." And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow: Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, "God be pitiful," Who ne'er said, "God be praised."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
He's just, your cousin, ay, abhorrently, He'd wash his hands in blood, to keep them clean.

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
And Chaucer, with his infantine
Familiar clasp of things divine.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning