Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every day'sMost 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 useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith 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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Earth's crammed with heaven...But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 tenderlyThe hard types of the mason's knife,As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's lifeWith which we're tired, my heart and I ....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 loved, used, - well enough,I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God's gifts put men's best dreams to shame.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 paper's light ...Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if God's 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!

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Good aims not always make good books.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 lov'd, us'd -- well enough,I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

His answer was - not the common gallantries which come so easily to the lips of me - but simply that he loved me - he met argument with fact. He told me - that with himself also, the early freshness of youth had gone by, & that throughout it he had not been able to love any woman - that he loved now for the first time & the last.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I thought once how Theocritus had sungOf the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appearsTo bear a gift for mortals, old or young;And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,Those of my own life, who by turns had flungA shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,So weeping, how a mystic Shape did moveBehind me, and drew me backward by the hair;And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--Guess now who holds thee?--Death, I said, But, there,The silver answer rang,--Not Death, but Love.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I only thoughtOf lying quiet there where I was thrownLike sea-weed on the rocks, and suffer herTo prick me to a pattern with her pin,Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,And dry out from my drowned anatomyThe last sea-salt left in me.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let no one 'til his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work Until the day's out and the labor done: Then bring your gauges.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword. Ready to do what a hero can.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A woman's always younger than a man of equal years.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Who so loves believes the impossible.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For tis not in mere death that men die most.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning