Quotes by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Let no one till his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
It is not merely the likeness which is precious... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think -- and it is not at all monstrous in me to say that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist's work ever produced.
Hurt a fly! He would not for the world: he's pitiful to flies even. Sing, says he, and tease me still, if that's your way, poor insect.
Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see How many desolate creatures on the earth Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship And social comfort, in a hospital.
The devil's most devilish when respectable.
Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor's done.
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.
Whoso loves, believes the impossible.
If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.
Eve is a twofold mystery.
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers and thrust the thing we have prayed for in our face, like a gauntlet with a gift in it.
Books succeed, and lives fail.
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.
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.
What is art, But life upon the larger scale, the higher,...
What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?
No man can be called friendless when he has God and the companionship of good books.
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
And lips say God be pitiful, who never said, God be praised.
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. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 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.
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!
Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
