Quotes from Robert Browning

"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's prideTouched to the quick, he said:"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,Smiling the boy fell dead.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!Earth's returnsFor whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!Shut them in,With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!Love is best!

Out came the children running. All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats.Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,Families by tens and dozens,Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—Followed the Piper for their lives.

You call for faith:I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,If faith o'ercomes doubt.

White shall not neutralize the black, nor goodCompensate bad in man, absolve him so:Life's business being just the terrible choice.

While you sat and played toccatas, stately at the clavichord.

We're made so that we loveFirst when we see them painted, things we have passedPerhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;And so they are better, painted—better to us,Which is the same thing. Art was given for that.

There is no truer truth obtainable By Man than comes of music.

What I aspired to be,And was not, comforts me.

Just for a handful of silver he left us,Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

Truth that peepsOver the glasses' edge when dinner's done.

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,(If our loves remain)In an English lane.

Faultless to a fault.

I gave commands;Then all smiles stopped together.

No, when the fight begins within himself,A man's worth something.

'Tis because stiffish cock-tail, taken in time,Is better for a bruise than arnica.

Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are;Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,By famous Hanover city.

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,And did he stop and speak to you,And did you speak to him again?How strange it seems, and new!

I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.

On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.