Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

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

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

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

You're something between a dream and a miracle.

Light tomorrow with today!

Silence is the best response to a fool.

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

I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.

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.

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.

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

Art is much, but love is more.

Two human loves make one divine.

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.

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.

Eyes of gentianellas azure, Staring, winking at the skies.

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.

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

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The 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 teach My hand to hold my spirits so far off From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend 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.

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

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.

The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play.

His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears.

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.

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

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

Whoever lives true life, will love true love.

Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.

The devil's most devilish when respectable.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking, Throw them earthward where they grew Dim are such, beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto. Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do.

Whoso loves, believes in the impossible

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.

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?

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

I would not be a rose upon the wall A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom.

O rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet, But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat, Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

He who breathes deepest lives most.

It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden of Eden.

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

A good neighbor sometimes cuts your morning up to mince-meat of the very smallest talk, then helps to sugar her bohea at night with your reputation.

truth outlives pain, as the soul does life.

And if God choose I shall but love thee better after death.

What monster have we here? A great Deed at this hour of day? A great just deed - and not for pay? Absurd - or insincere?

I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

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

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

The essence of all beauty, I call love, The attribute, the evidence, and end, The consummation to the inward sense Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love.

The essence of all beauty, I call love.

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