Quotes by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Gods gifts put mens best dreams to shame.

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said, -- he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,Yet I wept for it! -- this, ... the papers light ...Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if Gods future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availedIf, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

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

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

Better farPursue a frivolous trade by serious means,Than a sublime art frivolously.

I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccios stories; and I am not ashamed of it.

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 books profound, impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth--tis then we get the right good from the book.

Good aims not always make good books.

It is rather whenWe gloriously forget ourselves, and plungeSoul-forward, headlong, into a books profound,Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth--Tis then we get the right good from a book.

In this abundant earth no doubtIs little room for things worn out:Disdain them, break them, throw them by!And if before the days grew roughWe once were lovd, usd -- well enough,I think, weve fard, my heart and I.

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.

And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak,Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that tiesMy hair...now could I but unloose my soul!We are sepulchred alive in this close world,And want more room.

The picture of helpless indolence she calls herselfsublimely helpless and impotentI had done living I thoughtWas ever life so like death before? My face was so close against the tombstones, that there seemed no room for tears.

And wilt thou have me fashion into speechThe love I bear thee, finding words enough,And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,Between our faces, to cast light on each? -I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teachMy hand to hold my spirits so far offFrom myself--me--that I should bring thee proofIn words, of love hid in me out of reach.Nay, let the silence of my womanhoodCommend my woman-love to thy belief, -Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,And rend the garment of my life, in brief,By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.

I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,That only men incredulous of despair,Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight airBeat upward to God’s throne in loud accessOf shrieking and reproach. Full desertnessIn souls, as countries, lieth silent-bareUnder the blanching, vertical eye-glareOf the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, expressGrief for thy dead in silence like to death— Most like a monumental statue setIn everlasting watch and moveless woeTill itself crumble to the dust beneath.Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet;If it could weep, it could arise and go.

Youre something between a dream and a miracle.

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fineSad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

The wisest word man reaches is the humblest he can speak.

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