Quotes & Sayings About Love Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee
in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. — 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

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I shall but love thee bitter after death — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

But I love you, sir:
And when a woman says she loves a man,
The man must hear her, though he love her not. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Art is much, but love is more ... — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The man, most man,
Works best for men, and, if most men indeed,
He gets his manhood plainest from his soul:
While, obviously, this stringent soul itself
Obeys our old rules of development;
The Spirit ever witnessing in ours,
And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul,
Evolving it sublimely. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The 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 teach
My hand to hold my spirits so far off
From myself
me
that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend 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

Whoever lives true life, will love true love. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My love for him was so exquisitely pure that if we all were capable of giving and receiving such a beautiful gift the world would be a far more brilliant place; I think we'd all be poets. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love doesn't make the world go round, Love is what makes the ride worthwhile! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,
he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To 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 quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine
and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A man may love a woman perfectly, and yet by no means ignorantly maintain a thousand women have not larger eyes. Enough that she alone has looked at him with eyes that, large or small, have won his soul. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I f thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say, I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way Of speaking gently ... for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and, certes, brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee-and love so wrought, May be unwrought so. — 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

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Definition of Love: A score of zero in tennis. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Earth may embitter, not remove,
The love divinely given;
And e'en that mortal grief shall prove
The immortality of love,
And lead us nearer heaven. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The essence of all beauty, I call love. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Guess now who holds thee?" - "Death," I said. But, there, The silver answer rang, - "Not Death, but Love." - ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING — Wayne W. Dyer

The soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne,
And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
Is by thee only, whom I love alone. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love me sweet
With all thou art
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the Lightest part,
Love me in full Being. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

But since he had The genius to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

They say that God lives very high! But if you look above the pines You cannot see our God. And why? And if you dig down in the mines You never see Him in the gold, Though from Him all that's glory shines. God is so good, He wears a fold Of heaven and earth across His face - Like secrets kept, for love, untold. But still I feel that His embrace Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place: As if my tender brother laid On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, Half waking me at night; and said, "Who kissed through the dark, dear guesser?" — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Behold me! I am worthy
Of thy loving, for I love thee! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me
wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

O Life,
How oft we throw it off and think, - 'Enough,
Enough of life in so much! - here's a cause
For rupture; - herein we must break with Life,
Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,
Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!'
- And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes
And think all ended. - Then, Life calls to us
In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice,
Above us, or below us, or around .
Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,
Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed
To own our compensations than our griefs:
Still, Life's voice! - still, we make our peace with Life. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I love you for the part of me that you bring out. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace,
To live on still in love, and yet in vain — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble ... — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For me, my heart, that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose,
Who giveth His Beloved, sleep. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Through heaven and earth
God's will moves freely, and I follow it,
As color follows light. He overflows
The firmamental walls with deity,
Therefore with love; His lightnings go abroad,
His pity may do so, His angels must,
Whene'er He gives them charges. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To 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 flung
A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind 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

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,-
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The critics could never mortify me out of heart - because I love poetry for its own sake, - and, tho' with no stoicism and some ambition, care more for my poems than for my poetic reputation. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love that endures, from life that disappears! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Will that light come again,
As now these tears come ... falling hot and real! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars,
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me ... -toll
The silver iterance! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Nor myrtle
which means chiefly love: and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Whoso loves, believes in the impossible — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen." — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll-
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me-toll
The silver iterance!-only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence, with thy soul. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past - Oh, never call it loving! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning