Quotes from Robert Browning

Why stay we on earth except to grow?

It is the glory and good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth - to mouths like mine, at least.

How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark Autumn evenings come, And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life's November too! I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows, And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!

This world's no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink.

grow old with me. the best is yet to be. the last of life for which the first was made.

My whole life long I learn'd to love, This hour my utmost art I prove. And speak my passion—— heaven or hell? She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!

Rats They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles. Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

Smiling the boy fell dead.

What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart, As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

I was ever a fighter, so---one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, and bade me creep past.

Any nose May ravage with impunity a rose.

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph.

Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also

A man's reach should exceed his grasp

Life with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear, Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

Time is counted, not by hours, but by heart-beats.

O lyric love! half angel half bird

Have you found your life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I save and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again.