Robert Browning Quotes & Sayings

All poetry is putting the infinite within the finite. — Robert Browning

The great mind knows the power of gentleness. — Robert Browning

He guides me and the bird. In His good time! — Robert Browning

The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride. — Robert Browning

Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart. — Robert Browning

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds? — Robert Browning

The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit and fire and dew. — Robert Browning

So, fall asleep love, loved by me ... for I know love, I am loved by thee. — Robert Browning

A man in armor is his armor's slave. — Robert Browning

Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy? — Robert Browning

I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection ... I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretense of sparing me a twinge or two. — Robert Browning

Can we love but on condition that the thing we love must die? — Robert Browning

That we devote ourselves to God, is seen In living just as though no God there were. — Robert Browning

God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency. — Robert Browning

Rats
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles.
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats. — Robert Browning

A minute's success pays the failure of years. — Robert Browning

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. — Robert Browning

Life In Love

Escape me?
Never---
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,---
So the chace takes up one's life ' that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me---
Ever
Removed! — Robert Browning

One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'. — Robert Browning

No thought which ever stirred
A human breast should be untold. — Robert Browning

What so wild as words are? — Robert Browning

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet. From the ripple to run over in its mirth — Robert Browning

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! — Robert Browning

Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope means recognizing fear. — Robert Browning

Wander at will,
Day after day,
Wander away,
Wandering still
Soul that canst soar!
Body may slumber:
Body shall cumber
Soul-flight no more. — Robert Browning

Our business was done at the river's brink; — Robert Browning

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. — Robert Browning

A lion may die of an ass's kick. — Robert Browning

The heavens and earth stay as they were; my heart Beats as it beat: the truth remains the truth. — Robert Browning

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us, Burns, Shelley, were with us. They watch from their graves! — Robert Browning

Since there my past life lies, why alter it? — Robert Browning

There's a new tribunal now higher than God's -The educated man's! — Robert Browning

Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet. — Robert Browning

Hold On. Hope Hard. — Robert Browning

There is to truer truth attainable to man than comes of music. — Robert Browning

God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that. — Robert Browning

The candid incline to surmise of late that the Christian faith proves false. — Robert Browning

I.. know what I do, and am unmoved by men's blame, or their praise either. — Robert Browning

If you can sit at set of sun And count the deeds that you have done And counting find oneself-denying act, one word That eased the heart of him that heard. One glance most kind, Which fell like sunshine where he went, Then you may count that day well spent. — Robert Browning

I say, the acknowledgment of God in ChristAccepted by thy reason, solves for theeAll questions in the earth and out of it,And has so far advanced thee to be wise. — Robert Browning

Graved inside of it, "Italy". — Robert Browning

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop? — Robert Browning

From the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea. — Robert Browning

I was ever a fighter, so
one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, and bade me creep past. — Robert Browning

Be sure they sleep not whom God needs. — Robert Browning

Thought is the soul of act. — Robert Browning

You never know what life means till you die; even throughout life, tis death that makes life live. — Robert Browning

A pretty woman's worth some pains to see. — Robert Browning

Every one soon or late comes round by Rome. — Robert Browning

Day! Faster and more fast. O'er night's brim, day boils at last. — Robert Browning

Let friend trust friends, and love demand love's like. — Robert Browning

In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. — Robert Browning

The moment eternal - just that and no more - When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet! — Robert Browning

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure. — Robert Browning

Who knows most, doubts most. — Robert Browning

What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what's best for men?
Are you - -poor, sick, old ere your time - -
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride. — Robert Browning

"With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart" once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he! — Robert Browning

For thence a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, - Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. — Robert Browning

Dear, dead women, with such hair, too
what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? — Robert Browning

Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once. — Robert Browning

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 Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. — Robert Browning

Ignorance is not innocence but sin. — Robert Browning

The best things in life can never be kept;
They must be given away.
A Smile, a Kiss, and Love
If you are asking if I'd hurt you, the answer is never.
If you are asking if i love u,the answer is forever.
If you are asking if i want u,the answer is i do.
If you are asking what i value most, the answer is YOU
Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be. — Robert Browning

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! — Robert Browning

I have no little insight into the feelings of furniture, and treat books and prints with a reasonable consideration. How some people use their pictures, for instance, is a mystery to me; very revolting all the same
portraits obliged to face each other for ever
prints put together in portfolios. — Robert Browning

Sing, riding 's a joy! For me I ride. — Robert Browning

What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me. — Robert Browning

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! — Robert Browning

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. — Robert Browning

Who knows but the world may end tonight — Robert Browning

At last awake from life, that insane dream we take for waking now. — Robert Browning

Hatred and cark and care, what place have they / In yon blue liberality of heaven?. — Robert Browning

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round. — Robert Browning

Robert Browning's childhood was passed in an unusually serene and happy home. In Development he tells how, at five years of age, he was made to understand the main facts of the Trojan War by his father's clever use of the cat, the dogs, the pony in the stable, and the page-boy, to impersonate the heroes of that ancient conflict. — Robert Browning

Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. — Robert Browning

But there are times when patience proves at fault. — Robert Browning

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. — Robert Browning

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest! — Robert Browning

That great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it. — Robert Browning

A minute of success pays for years of failure. — Robert Browning

Night conceals a world but reveals a universe. — Robert Browning

Death was past, life not come: so he waited. — Robert Browning

The lie was dead And damned, and truth stood up instead. — Robert Browning

Faultless to a fault. — Robert Browning

The past is gained, secure, and on record. — Robert Browning

To do good things in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning to your life. — Robert Browning

But facts are facts and flinch not. — Robert Browning

Sappho survives, because we sing her songs; And Eschylus, because we read his plays! — Robert Browning

Truth never hurts the teller. — Robert Browning

Never brag, never bluster, never blush. — Robert Browning

I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on. — Robert Browning

Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it, -so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present, condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense. — Robert Browning

Such a scribe
you pay and praise for putting life in stones,
Fire into fog, making the past your world.
There's plenty of 'How did you contrive to grasp
The thread which led you through this labyrinth?
How build such solid fabric out of air?
How on so slight foundation found this tale,
Biography, narrative?' or, in other words,
How many lies did it require to make
The portly truth you here present us with? — Robert Browning

Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike. — Robert Browning

The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's 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. — Robert Browning

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? — Robert Browning

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! — Robert Browning

The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its best to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up and all the cottage warm; — Robert Browning

Ah, love, - you are my unutterable blessing ... I am in full sunshine now. — Robert Browning

All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves. — Robert Browning