Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

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.

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.

You're something between a dream and a miracle.

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.

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.

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

And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain

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

A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.

Who so loves believes the impossible.

My love for him was so exquisitely pure that if we all were capable of giving and receiving such a beautiful gift the world would be a far more brilliant place; I think we'd all be poets.

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?

Two human loves make one divine.

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.

If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand.

Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.

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

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

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

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

Souls are dangerous things to carry straight through all the spilt saltpetre of this world.

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

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

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.

New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

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

Love that endures, from life that disappears!

A man may love a woman perfectly, and yet by no means ignorantly maintain a thousand women have not larger eyes. Enough that she alone has looked at him with eyes that, large or small, have won his soul.

truth outlives pain, as the soul does life.

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