Quotes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in 't.

"Yes," I answered you last night; "No," this morning, sir, I say. Colours seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware.

I have done most of my talking by post of late years--as people shut up in dungeons take up with scrawling mottoes on the walls.

The denial of contemporary genius is the rule rather than the exception. No one counts the eagles in the nest, till there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown.

The exchange of sympathy for gratitude is the most princely thing!

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you; Unless you can love, as the angels may, With the breadth of heaven betwixt you; Unless you can dream that his faith is fast, Through behoving and unbehoving; Unless you can die when the dream is past -- Oh, never call it loving!

I have wondered at you sometimes, not for daring, but for bearing to trust your noble works into the great mill of the rank, popular playhouse, to be ground to pieces between the teeth of vulgar actors and actresses. I, for one, would as soon have my soul among lions.

I remember, when I was a child and wrote poems in little clasped books, I used to kiss the books and put them away tenderly because I had been happy near them, and take them out by turns when I was going from home, to cheer them by the change of air and the pleasure of the new place. This, not for the sake of the verses written in them, and not for the sake of writing more verses in them, but from pure gratitude.

Whatever's lost, it first was won.

Of writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine,-- Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.

Every wish Is like a prayer--with God.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers-- And that cannot stop their tears.

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

You're something between a dream and a miracle.

"Guess now who holds thee?"—"Death," I said. But thereThe silver answer rang—"Not Death, but Love."

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,Ere the sorrow comes with years?

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, By reiteration chiefly.

Knowledge by suffering entereth,And life is perfected by death.

For tis not in mere death that men die most.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'

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

I tell you hopeless grief is passionless.

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.