Elizabeth Barrett Browning quotes:

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat or girl?

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.

Definition of Love: A score of zero in tennis. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life.

God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it.

World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain.

God Himself is the best Poet, And the Real is His song.

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'

Eyes of gentianellas azure, Staring, winking at the skies.

What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.

And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.

Who so loves believes the impossible.

Yes, I answered you last night; No, this morning, sir, I say: Colors seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day.

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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

And if God choose I shall but love thee better after death.

I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle light...I love thee with the breath,smiles,t ears,of all my life.

There's nothing great Nor small, has said a poet of our day, Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve And not be thrown out by the matin's bell.

In this abundant earth no doubtIs little room for things worn out:Disdain them, break them, throw them by!And if before the days grew roughWe once were lov'd, us'd -- well enough,I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

A great acacia, with its slender trunk And overpoise of multitudinous leaves. (In which a hundred fields might spill their dew And intense verdure, yet find room enough) Stood reconciling all the place with green.

What is art but the life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental.

I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom.

The devil's most devilish when respectable.

Sleep on, Baby, on the floor, Tired of all the playing, Sleep with smile the sweeter for That you dropped away in! On your curls' full roundness stand Golden lights serenely-- One cheek, pushed out by the hand, Folds the dimple inly.

Deep violets, you liken to The kindest eyes that look on you, Without a thought disloyal.

And there my little doves did sit With feathers softly brown And glittering eyes that showed their right To general Nature's deep delight.

O rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet, But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat, Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

Women know the way to rear up children (to be just). They know a simple, merry, tender knack of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, and stringing pretty words that make no sense. And kissing full sense into empty words.

She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt's pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows.

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.

Light tomorrow with today!

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.

As the moths around a taper, As the bees around a rose, As the gnats around a vapour, So the spirits group and close Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.

A good neighbor sometimes cuts your morning up to mince-meat of the very smallest talk, then helps to sugar her bohea at night with your reputation.

There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.

Whoso loves, believes in the impossible

What monster have we here? A great Deed at this hour of day? A great just deed - and not for pay? Absurd - or insincere?

Wall must get the weather stain Before they grow the ivy.

That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow But thinking of a wreath, . . . I like such ivy; bold to leap a height 'Twas strong to climb! as good to grow on graves As twist about a thyrsus; pretty too (And that's not ill) when twisted round a comb.

The music soars within the little lark, And the lark soars.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight out of man's reach, on the hill. God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

I wish I were the lily's leaf To fade upon that bosom warm, Content to wither, pale and brief, The trophy of thy paler form.

Purple lilies Dante blew To a larger bubble with his prophet breath.

And lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.

The critics could never mortify me out of heart - because I love poetry for its own sake, - and, tho' with no stoicism and some ambition, care more for my poems than for my poetic reputation.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men.

Nor myrtle--which means chiefly love: and love Is something awful which one dare not touch So early o' mornings.

You may write twenty lines one day--or even three like Euripides in three days--and a hundred lines in one more day--and yet on the hundred, may have been expended as much good work, as on the twenty and the three.

Think, in mounting higher, the angels would press on us, and aspire to drop some golden orb of perfect song into our deep, dear silence.

truth outlives pain, as the soul does life.

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.

We overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination... down our earth to rake...

Since when was genius found respectable?

Many a crown Covers bald foreheads.

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

He said true things, but called them by wrong names.

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

Earth's crammed with heaven...But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

Love me sweet With all thou art Feeling, thinking, seeing; Love me in the Lightest part, Love me in full Being.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach

If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love's sake only.

My sun sets to rise again.

The growing drama has outgrown such toys Of simulated stature, face, and speech: It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds.

Sing, seraph with the glory! heaven is high. Sing, poet with the sorrow! earth is low. The universe's inward voices cry "Amen" to either song of joy and woe. Sing, seraph, poet! sing on equally!

When God helps all the workers for His world, The singers shall have help of Him, not last.

With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!

My sun sets to raise again.

A great man leaves clean work behind him, and requires no sweeper up of the chips.

Pray, pray, thou who also weepest,-- And the drops will slacken so; Weep, weep--and the watch thou keepest, With a quicker count will go. Think,--the shadow on the dial For the nature most undone, Marks the passing of the trial, Proves the presence of the sun.

Whoever lives true life, will love true love.

This race is never grateful: from the first, One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge, In bitter vinegar.

She lived, we'll say, A harmless life, she called a virtuous life, A quiet life, which was not life at all (But that she had not lived enough to know)

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers?

You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.

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

He lives most life whoever breathes most air.

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness.

Art is much, but love is more ...

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.

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

I f thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say, I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way Of speaking gently ... for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and, certes, brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee-and love so wrought, May be unwrought so.

You're something between a dream and a miracle.

His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears.

Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,â??but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.

Two human loves make one divine.

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each? - I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirits so far off From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief, - Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

Enough! we're tired, my heart and I. We sit beside the headstone thus, And wish that name were carved for us. The moss reprints more tenderly The hard types of the mason's knife, As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's life With which we're tired, my heart and I .... In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out: Disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough We once were loved, used, - well enough, I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

Some people always sigh in thanking God.

The essence of all beauty, I call love.

Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.

I should not dare to call my soul my own.

He who breathes deepest lives most.

A woman cannot do the thing she ought, which means whatever perfect thing she can, in life, in art, in science, but she fears to let the perfect action take her part and rest there: she must prove what she can do before she does it, -- prate of woman's rights, of woman's mission, woman's function, till the men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, A woman's function plainly is... to talk. Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed!

Get work: Be sure it is better than what you work to get.

Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do.

An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking, Throw them earthward where they grew Dim are such, beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto. Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do.

What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?

And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness; Round our restlessness, His rest.

I heard an angel speak last night/And he said, "Write!"

Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.

We have hearts within, Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts.

Love that endures, from life that disappears!

Eve is a twofold mystery.

Unless you can feel when the song is done No other is sweet in its rhythm; Unless you can feel when left by one That all men else go with him.