Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

English poet (1806–1861)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6 1806 – June 29 1861) was an English poet and the wife of Robert Browning.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett

Alternative Names: Mrs. Browning • Elizabeth Barrett Barrett • Elizabeth Barrett-Browning • Elizaveta Barrett Brauning • Elisabeth Barrett Browning • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, née Barrett

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

Through the summer of 1845, Miss Barrett, as usual, recovered strength, but so slightly that her doctor urged that she should not face the winter in England. Plans were accordingly made for her going abroad, to which the following letters refer, but the scheme ultimately broke down before the prohibition of Mr. Barrett — a prohibition for which no valid reason was put forward, and which, to say the least, bore the colour of unaccountable indifference to his daughter’s health and wishes. The matter is of some importance on account of its bearing on the action taken by Miss Barrett in the autumn of the following year.

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.

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

Our Balzac should be flattered beyond measure by my thinking of him at all. Which I did, but of you more.

Better far
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means,
Than a sublime art frivolously.

By thunders of white silence.

Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–'
'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief)
'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,
And none was left to love in all the world.

Only it is right to bear in mind one fact, that, admitting the lawfulness of the coup d’état, you must not object to the dictatorship. And, admitting the temporary necessity of the dictatorship, it is absolute folly to expect under it the liberty and ease of a regular government.

The beautiful seems right
By force of Beauty, and the feeble wrong
Because of weakness.

Whoso loves
Believes the impossible.

What we call Life is a condition of the soul. And the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.

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.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
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
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

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

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!

Man, the two-fold creature, apprehends The two-fold manner, in and outwardly, And nothing in the world comes single to him. A mere itself, — cup, column, or candlestick, All patterns of what shall be in the Mount; The whole temporal show related royally, And build up to eterne significance Through the open arms of God.