Elizabeth Barrett Browning quotes - page 4

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an influential English poet, renowned for her passionate and emotional verse. Her collection "Sonnets from the Portuguese" is celebrated for its lyrical beauty and heartfelt expressions of love. She inspired generations of writers and became a prominent voice in Victorian literature. Here are 144 of her quotes:

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For tis not in mere death that men die most.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The cypress stood up like a church That night we felt our love would hold, And saintly moonlight seemed to search And wash the whole world clean as gold; The olives crystallized the vales' Broad slopes until the hills grew strong: The fireflies and the nightingales Throbbed each to either, flame and song. The nightingales, the nightingales.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Hush, call no echo up in further proof Of desolation! there's a voice within That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Good critics, who have stamped out poets' hope, Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state, Good patriots, who for a theory risked a cause.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

That he, in his developed manhood, stood A little sunburnt by the glare of life; While I . . it seemed no sun had shone on me.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The heart which, like a staff, was one For mine to lean and rest upon, The strongest on the longest day With steadfast love, is caught away, And yet my days go on, go on.And cold before my summer's done, And deaf in Nature's general tune, And fallen too low for special fear, And here, with hope no longer here, While the tears drop, my days go on.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Children use the fist Until they are of the age to use the brain.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I cannot feel That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal The shining sun; But then I know God lives and loves; and say, since it is so, "Thy will be done."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Perhaps the cup was broken here, That Heaven's new wine might show more clear. I praise Thee while my days go on.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What frightens me is that men are content with what is not life at all.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The devil's most devilish when respectable.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Never say No when the world says Aye.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The world's male chivalry has perished out, but women are knights-errant to the last and, if Cervantes had been greater still, he had made his Don a Donna.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Books, books, books 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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past — Oh, never call it loving!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, Whose deeds, both great and small Are close-knot strands of an unbroken thread There love ennobles all. The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells The book of life the shining record tells. Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes After its own life-workings. A childs 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 serve thyself by every sense, Of service which thou renderest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning