Robert Browning Quotes

306 Sourced Quotes

All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Robert Browning

You call for faith:
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt.

Robert Browning

You never know what life means till you die: Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live, Gives it whatever the significance.

Robert Browning

A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.

Robert Browning

And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

Robert Browning

Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee.

Robert Browning

Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to pain

Robert Browning

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

Robert Browning

Paracelsus At times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages' way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out — not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again.

Robert Browning

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Robert Browning

What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;
Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.

Robert Browning

Does he paint? he fain would write a poem—
Does he write? he fain would paint a picture.

Robert Browning

I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

Robert Browning

I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.

Robert Browning

Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!

Robert Browning

When earth breaks up and heaven expands,
How will the change strike me and you
In the house not made with hands?

Robert Browning

As is your sort of mind, So is your sort of search: You will find what you desire.

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

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!

Robert Browning

Autumn wins you best by this its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.

Robert Browning

There's a new tribunal now higher than God's -The educated man's!

Robert Browning

He who did well in war just earns the right
To begin doing well in peace.

Robert Browning

This could but have happened once,—
And we missed it, lost it forever.

Robert Browning

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city.

Robert Browning

How good is man's life, the mere living!
How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses
Forever in joy!

Robert Browning

I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God,—the right shall be the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures.
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward,—Nature's good
And God's.

Robert Browning

That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.

Robert Browning

A man can have but one life and one death,
One heaven, one hell.

Robert Browning

I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.

Robert Browning

I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

Robert Browning