Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.
But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!
How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.
World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain.
At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.
He lives most life whoever breathes most air.
A woman is always younger than a man at equal years.
Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat or girl?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'
Since when was genius found respectable?
An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.
You're something between a dream and a miracle.Collection: Life
Silence is the best response to a fool.Collection: Silence
I love you for the part of me that you bring out.Collection: Love
Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.Collection: Breathe
True knowledge comes only through suffering.Collection: Adversity
God Himself is the best Poet, And the Real is His song.Collection: Faith
The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play.Collection: Wind
It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden of Eden.Collection: Garden
Gaze up at the stars knowing that I see the same sky and wish the same sweet dreams.Collection: Inspirational
Art is much, but love is more.Collection: Art
The essence of all beauty, I call love, The attribute, the evidence, and end, The consummation to the inward sense Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love.Collection: Beauty
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.Collection: Love
Whoever lives true life, will love true love.Collection: Love
The devil's most devilish when respectable.Collection: Respect
With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.Collection: Women
Two human loves make one divine.Collection: Anniversary
All actual heroes are essential men, And all men possible heroes.Collection: Military
There are nettles everywhere, but smooth, green grasses are more common still; the blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.Collection: Clouds
At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.Collection: Time
In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out: Disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough We once were lov'd, us'd -- well enough, I think, we've far'd, my heart and I.Collection: Heart
And is it not the chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it?Collection: Money
I, who had had my heart full for hours, took advantage of an early moment of solitude, to cry in it very bitterly. Suddenly a little hairy head thrust itself from behind my pillow into my face, rubbing its ears and nose against me in a responsive agitation, and drying the tears as they came.Collection: Heart
My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.Collection: Long
Our Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears, and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.Collection: Rose
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.Collection: Soul
Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.Collection: Love Is
Books are men of higher stature.Collection: Book
Like to write? Of course, of course I do. I seem to live while I write - it is life, for me.Collection: Writing