Top 262 Quotes & Sayings by Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Page 4

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.

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

Books are men of higher stature.

A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.

O Earth, so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices! O delved gold, the wader's heap! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall! God makes a silence through you all, And "giveth His beloved, sleep.

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 lov'd, us'd -- well enough, I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.

And is it not the chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it?

Tis aye a solemn thing to me To look upon a babe that sleeps-- Wearing in its spirit-deeps The unrevealed mystery Of its Adam's taint and woe, Which, when they revealed lie, Will not let it slumber so.

My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.

I, who had had my heart full for hours, took advantage of an early moment of solitude, to cry in it very bitterly. Suddenly a little hairy head thrust itself from behind my pillow into my face, rubbing its ears and nose against me in a responsive agitation, and drying the tears as they came.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

"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."

The soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,And placed it by thee on a golden throne,-- And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

I work with patience, which is almost power.

How joyously the young sea-mew Lay dreaming on the waters blue, Whereon our little bark had thrown A little shade, the only one; But shadows ever man pursue.

Of writing many books there is no end.

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

For me, my heart, that erst did go Most like a tired child at a show, That sees through tears the mummers leap, Would now its wearied vision close, Would childlike on His love repose, Who giveth His Beloved, sleep.

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

The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against each piled injustice.

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

You believe In God, for your part?--that He who makes Can make good things from ill things, best from worst, As men plant tulips upon dunghills when They wish them finest.

Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!

It is difficult to get rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure.

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

Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live while I write - it is life, for me.

Capacity for joy Admits temptation.

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

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

May the good God pardon all good men.

The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light.

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.

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.

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.

Of all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deep, Now tell me if that any is. For gift or grace, surpassing this-- He giveth His beloved sleep.

The denial of contemporary genius is the rule rather than the exception. No one counts the eagles in the nest, till there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown.

For none can express thee, though all should approve thee. I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.

Most illogical Irrational nature of our womanhood, That blushes one way, feels another way, And prays, perhaps another!

And I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture.

We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits--so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty, and salt of truth-- 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.

Every age, Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned By those who have not lived past it.

For poets (bear the word) Half-poets even, are still whole democrats.

Men of science, osteologists And surgeons, beat some poets, in respect For nature,-count nought common or unclean, Spend raptures upon perfect specimens Of indurated veins, distorted joints, Or beautiful new cases of curved spine; While we, we are shocked at nature's falling off, We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains.

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.

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.

It is not merely the likeness which is precious... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think - and it is not at all monstrous in me to say that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist's work ever produced.

Our Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears, and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.

The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise, I barter for curl upon that mart.

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

O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly in a plaintive mood, The holy name of Grief--holy herein, That, by the grief of One, came all our good.

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

I have done most of my talking by post of late years--as people shut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls.

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

A grave, on which to rest from singing?

Life treads on life, and heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart.