Quotes
Quotes - Browning
And lilies are still lilies, pulled By smutty hands, though spotted from their white.
. . . Purple lilies Dante blew To a larger bubble with his prophet breath.
And lilies white, prepared to touch The whitest thought, nor soil it much, Of dreamer turned to lover.
Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight out of man's reach, on the hill. God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
I wish I were the lily's leaf To fade upon that bosom warm, Content to wither, pale and brief, The trophy of thy paler form.
You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.
Who so loves believes the impossible.
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 everyday'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.
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
The man, most man, works best for men: and, if most man indeed, he gets his manhood plainest from his soul.
Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts.
Yet half the beast is the great god Pan, To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain-- For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds of the river.
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.
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.
The sea heaves up, hangs loaded o'er the land, Breaks there, and buries its tumultuous strength.
This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever.
The large white owl that with eye is blind, That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, Is carried away in a gust of wind.
World's use is cold, world's love is vain, World's cruelty is bitter bane; But pain is not the fruit of pain.
Pansies for ladies all--(I wis That none who wear such brooches miss A jewel in the mirror).
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.
Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.
But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?
I worked with patience which means almost power.
And I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture.
