Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father’s name; Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!

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

Never say No when the world says Aye.

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

XI I sang his name instead of song; Over and over I sang his name: Backward and forward I sang it along, With my sweetest notes, it was still the same! I sang it low, that the slave-girls near Might never guess, from what they could hear, That all the song was a name.

Eve is a twofold mystery.

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach

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

Silence is the best response to a fool.

I would confide to you perhaps my secret profession of faith - which is ... which is ... that let us say and do what we please and can ... there is a natural inferiority of mind in women - of the intellect ... not by any means, of the moral nature - and that the history of Art and of genius testifies to this fact openly.

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.

Let us be content to work To do the things we can, and not presume To fret because it's little.

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

Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

All actual heroes are essential men, And all men possible heroes.

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

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

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.

With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world!

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

I begin to think that none are so bold as the timid, when they are fairly roused.

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

He lives most life whoever breathes most air.

A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest.

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

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

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)

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

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

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

When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. . . .

Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do.

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.

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

"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."

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.

Thou large-brain'd woman and large-hearted man.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I would build a cloudy House For my thoughts to live in; When for earth too fancy-loose And too low for Heaven! Hush! I talk my dream aloud - I build it bright to see, - I build it on the moonlit cloud, To which I looked with thee.

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

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.

Books succeed; and lives fail.

In your patience ye are strong.

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