Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

“O pusillanimous Heart, be comfortedAnd, like a cheerful traveller, take the roadSinging beside the hedge.”

“We have hearts within, Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts.”

“Mountain gorses, do ye teach us. . . .That the wisest word man reachesIs the humblest he can speak?”

“A grave, on which to rest from singing?”

“Never say No when the world says Aye.”

“A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.”

“Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed. But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!”

“If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me?”

“The large white owl that with eye is blind, That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, Is carried away in a gust of wind.”

“Since when was genius found respectable?”

“In your patience ye are strong.”

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

“Behold me! I am worthyOf thy loving, for I love thee!”

“The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental.”

“It is difficult to get rid of people when you once have given them too much pleasure.”

“I, who thought to sink, was caught up into love, and taught the whole of life in a new rhythm.”

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

“Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!”

“Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.”

“When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.”

“And friends, dear friends,--when it shall be That this low breath is gone from me, And gone my bier ye come to weep, Let One, most loving of you all, Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall; He giveth His beloved sleep.”

“The essence of all beauty, I call love.”

“Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love, thereby!But love me for love's sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love's eternity.”

“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.”

“You smell a rose through a fence: If two should smell it, what matter?”