Robert Browning Quotes

306 Sourced Quotes

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet. From the ripple to run over in its mirth

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

No thought which ever stirred
A human breast should be untold.

Robert Browning

Things are where things are, and, as fate has willed,
So shall they be fulfilled.

Robert Browning

White fishing gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets.

Robert Browning

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

Robert Browning

I want to know a butcher paints, A baker rhymes for his pursuit, Candlestick-maker much acquaints His soul with song, or, haply mute, Blows out his brains upon the flute.

Robert Browning

Hatred and cark and care, what place have they / In yon blue liberality of heaven?.

Robert Browning

For thence a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, - Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

Robert Browning

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

Robert Browning

For the preacher's merit or demerit, It were to be wished that the flaws were fewer In the earthen vessel, holding treasure, But the main thing is, does it hold good measure Heaven soon sets right all other matters!

Robert Browning

Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike.

Robert Browning

I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered--that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me.

Robert Browning

At last awake from life, that insane dream we take for waking now.

Robert Browning

Lose who may-I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!

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

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

Robert Browning

We mortals cross the ocean of this world Each in his average cabin of a life; The bests not big, the worst yields elbowroom.

Robert Browning

Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy?

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

Once I saw a chemist take a pinch of powder — Simple dust it seemed — and half unstop a phial. — Outdropped harmless dew.

Robert Browning

Born, bred, with just one instinct - that of growth:

Robert Browning

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!

Robert Browning

The great beacon light God sets in all, the conscience of each bosom.

Robert Browning

All that I know of a certain star, Is, it can throw, (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue.

Robert Browning

Hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship,
And great hearts expand
And grow one in the sense of this world's life.

Robert Browning

Just an experiment first, for candor's sake.

Robert Browning

Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope means recognizing fear.

Robert Browning

When a man's busy, why leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: 'Faith, and at leisure once is he? Straightway he wants to be busy.

Robert Browning

Rejoice that man is hurled, From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled!

Robert Browning