Robert Browning Quotes

Success in marriage is more than finding the right person: it is being the right person.

Genius has somewhat of the infantine; but of the childish not a touch or taint.

Smiling the boy fell dead.

Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope means recognizing fear.

All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves.

Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?

Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike.

Women hate a debt as men a gift.

Go practice if you please with men and women: leave a child alone for Christ's particular love's sake!

Every one soon or late comes round by Rome.

God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations.

The candid incline to surmise of late that the Christian faith proves false.

Outside are the storms and strangers: we — Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, — I and she!

My business is not to remake myself, but to make the absolute best of what God made.

Praise is deeper than the lips

In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power — And thus we half-men struggle.

God is the perfect poet.

God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened the next tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss . . .

All's love, yet all's law.

You never know what life means till you die; even throughout life, tis death that makes life live.

Night conceals a world but reveals a universe.

When pain ends, gain ends too.

I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.

I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way. But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before Love, - Only sleep.

And gain is gain, however small.

And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her- Next time, herself!-not the trouble behind her

Who knows most, doubts most.

A man in armour is his armour's slave.

But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again.

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.

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

Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beast's; God is, they are, Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

He guides me and the bird. In His good time!

Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy.

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds?

The great beacon light God sets in all, the conscience of each bosom.

One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'.

I do what many dream of, all their lives

Strike when thou wilt, the hour of rest, but let my last days be my best.

If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls.

Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell!

It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.

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