WednesdayAug 12, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Robert Browning (May 7, 1812 - December 12, 1889) was a British poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.
Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.
Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast.
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
Never glad confident morning again!
When the liquor's out, why clink the cannikin?
Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed!
Ambition is not what man does... But what man would do.
Autumn wins you best by this, its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
For I say, this is death and the sole death, When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.
Love is energy of life.
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
When the fight begins within himself, A man's worth something.
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
Poetry puts the infinite within the finite.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Everyone soon or late comes round by Rome.
The grand Perhaps.
Truth that peeps Over the edge when dinner's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little.
For the loving worm within its clod, Were diviner than a loveless god.
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture.
Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the North-west died away.
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are, Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one; And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all.
All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and shine, wonder, wealth, andhow far above them Truth, that's brighter than gem, Truth, that's purer than pearl, Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe all were for me In the kiss of one girl.
The day's at the morn; Mornings at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven All's right with the world.
When is man strong until he feels alone? Colombe's Birthday
A man in armour is his armours slave.
What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me.
Days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
I give the fight up: let there be an end, A privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach.
Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.
The body sprang At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,no!
All that is, at all, Lasts ever. past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good Compensate bad in man, absolve him so: Life's business being just the terrible choice.
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake
I hear you reproach, 'But delay was best, For their end was a crime.' Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! ...... Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Isthe unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness.
O never star Was lost; here We all aspire to heaven and there is heaven Above us. If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press Gods lamp Close to my breast; its splendor soon or late Will pierce the gloom. I shall emerge some day.
Death was past, life not come: so he waited.
How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can. And absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change.
We shall march prospering,not thro' his presence; Songs may inspirit us,not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Lofty designs must close in like effects.
Are there not, dear Michael, Two points in the adventure of the diver, One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge; One, when a prince he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge.
In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now.
Was never evening yet But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
Day! Faster and more fast. Oer nights brim, day boils at last.
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride.
And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift, Is quick and transient, comes, and lo! is gone, While Northern thought is slow and durable.
When the fight begins within himself, A man 's worth something.
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.
What a thing friendship is World without end.
It is the glory and good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least.
So may a glory from defect arise.
Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen In living just as though no God there were.
He guides me and the bird. In His good time!
God's in his heaven: All's right with the world.
The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dewpearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven, All's right with the world!
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency.
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
A common grayness silvers everything.
That great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it.
But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: See all, nor be afraid!
Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever.
Where my heart lies let my brain lie also.
Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.
Lose who mayI still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!
Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed, As, God be thanked! I do not.
Over my head his arm he flung Against the world.
Sing, riding 's a joy! For me I ride.
I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive, what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God send his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time.
Ignorance is not innocence but sin.
'T is not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do.
The sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea.
Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice Lost her Calais): 'Open my heart, and you will see Graved inside of it 'Italy.'
Every joy is gain, and gain is gain, however small.
Ever judge of men by their professions. For though the bright moment of promising is but a moment, and cannot be prolonged, yet if sincere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it, and know the man by it, I say, not by his performance; which is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might be, not are, nor will be.
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up and begin again.
Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet.
The ultimate, angels' law, Indulging every instinct of the soul There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
Less is more.
The lie was dead And damned, and truth stood up instead.
Have you found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I 'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again.
I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on.
Life is an empty dream.
Pippas Song The years at the spring, The days at the morn; Mornings at seven; The hillsides dew-pearld; The larks on the wing; The snails on the thorn; Gods in His heaven Alls right with the world!
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear (believe the aged friend), Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
It 's a long lane that knows no turnings.
Look not thou down but up!
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.
Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell!
Love, hope, fear, faith these make humanity; These are its sign, and note and character.
For I say this is death and the sole death, When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.
Measure your minds height by the shade it casts.
Where the apple reddens Never pry Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.
Lets contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before Love, Only sleep.
Any nose May ravage with impunity a rose.
O woman-country! wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead.
What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
Oh their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one songand in my brain I sing it; Drew one angelborne, see, on my bosom!
Other heights in other lives, God willing.
Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
I am grown peaceful as old age tonight.
They are perfect; how else?they shall never change: We are faulty; why not?we have time in store.
God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations.
Into the street the piper stepped, Smiling first a little smile As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while. And the piper advanced And the children followed.
Stand still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night youll fail us: when afar You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star!
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts: God is, they are; Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
Most progress is most failure.
There 's a woman like a dewdrop, she 's so purer than the purest. A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.
Rafael made a century of sonnets.
In the great right of an excessive wrong.
It was roses, roses all the way.
Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through Into eternity, our due? No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs; And Æschylus, because we read his plays!
All service ranks the same with God, With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first.
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new!
Say not 'a small event!' Why 'small'? Costs it more pain that this ye call A 'great event' should come to pass From that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!
And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again.
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Oh never star Was lost here but it rose afar.
A minutes success pays the failure of years.
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
Why comes temptation, but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture.
Why stay we on the earth except to grow?
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
The best way to excape his ire Is, not to seem too happy.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time. I trust in God,the right shall be the right And other than the wrong, while he endures. I trust in my own soul, that can perceive The outward and the inward,Nature's good And God's.
So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts The teller.
If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides,one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas, Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.
Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!
Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) Linking our England to his Italy.
He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace.
It 's wiser being good than bad; It 's safer being meek than fierce; It 's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That after Last returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched;
There's a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest.
Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go Floating the women faded for ages, Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty.
In Gods good time, Which does not always fall on Saturday When the world looks for wages.
Of what I call God, And fools call Nature.
'With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart' once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
If you get simple beauty and nought else, You get about the best thing God invents.
The great mind knows the power of gentleness.
Fear death?to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet t
But facts are facts and flinch not.
All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt: We called the chess-board whitewe call it black.
Faultless to a fault.
Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live.
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundreds soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world hereshould he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplext Seeking shall find Him.
Who knows most, doubts most.
Oh, our manhoods prime vigor! No spirit feels waste. Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair, And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
Alls love, yet alls law.
Such ever was loves way: to rise, it stoops.
All poetry is difficult to read The sense of it anyhow.
How sad and bad and mad it was But then, how it was sweet!
Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.
The only faults with time; All men become good creatures: but so slow!
Theres a new tribunal now, Higher than Godsthe educated mans!
Tis an awkward thing to play with souls.
Truth never hurt the teller.
Truth that peeps Over the glasss edge when dinners done.
No work begun shall ever pause for death.
The common problem, yours, mine, everyones Is not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means.
And gain is gain, however small.
Genius has somewhat of the infantine; But of the childish not a touch or taint.
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