Quotes from Robert Browning

Oh child that didst despise thy life so much When it seemed only thine to keep or lose, How the fine ear felt fall the first low word "Value life, and preserve life for My sake!"

Forgive me this digression that I stand Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade "Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear, "And let Law listen to thy difference!" And Law does listen and compose the strife, Settle the suit, how wisely and how well! On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault, Law bends a brow maternally severe, Implies the worth of perfect chastity, By fancying the flaw she cannot find.

Go practise if you please With men and women: leave a child alone For Christ's particular love's sake!

A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since. Give it me back! The thing's restorative I'the touch and sight.

Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore: Prime nature with an added artistry No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say; A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

So, take, and use thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men.

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all! Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men.

The ultimate, angels' law, Indulging every instinct of the soul There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!

What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it. This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it.

You should not take a fellow eight years old And make him swear to never kiss the girls.

The heavens and earth stay as they were; my heart Beats as it beat: the truth remains the truth.

Some unsuspected isle in the far seas, Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this ye call A "great event" should come to pass From that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!

The peerless cup afloat Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph Swims bearing high above her head.

Jove strikes the Titans down Not when they set about their mountain-piling But when another rock would crown the work.

The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride.

Are there not, dear Michal, Two points in the adventure of the diver, One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge; One, when a prince he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge.

I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive,what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God send his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time.