Robert Browning Quotes

306 Sourced Quotes

The lie was dead
And damned, and truth stood up instead.

Robert Browning
The instant made eternity—
And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, forever ride?

Robert Browning
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us—they watch from their graves!

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

Robert Browning
Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

Robert Browning
In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity

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

Robert Browning
Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.

Robert Browning
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!

Robert Browning
Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles.

Robert Browning
We're made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;
And so they are better, painted —better to us,
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that.

Robert Browning
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Robert Browning
The sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea.

Robert Browning
All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and shine,- wonder, wealth, and-how far above them- Truth, that's brighter than gem, Truth, that's purer than pearl,- Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe- all were for me In the kiss of one girl.

Robert Browning
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

Robert Browning
Oh child that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,
How the fine ear felt fall the first low word
"Value life, and preserve life for My sake!"

Robert Browning
God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!

Robert Browning
When it was written, God and Robert Browning knew what it meant; now only God knows.
On Sordello

Robert Browning
A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.
Give it me back! The thing's restorative
I'the touch and sight.

Robert Browning
We find great things are made of little things, And little things go lessening till at last Comes God behind them.

Robert Browning
He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes:
The past was a sleep, and her life began.

Robert Browning
Sky—what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

Robert Browning
'Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ: Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft.

Robert Browning
O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire, —
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face, —
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory — to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, —
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!

Robert Browning
Day! Faster and more fast. O'er night's brim, day boils at last.

Robert Browning
That's all we may expect of man, this side The grave: his good is—knowing he is bad.

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
'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.

Robert Browning
The best way to escape His ire Is, not to seem too happy.

Robert Browning