Top 180 Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

102. “I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

103. “Eve is a twofold mystery.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

104. “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.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

105. “Large, musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

106. “O brave poets, keep back nothing; Nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in Worthy song from earnest soul! Hold, in high poetic duty, Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

107. “A good neighbor sometimes cuts your morning up to mince-meat of the very smallest talk, then helps to sugar her bohea at night with your reputation.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

108. “In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out: Disdain them, break them, throw them by! And if before the days grew rough We once were lov’d, us’d – well enough, I think, we’ve far’d, my heart and I.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

109. “The beautiful seems right by force of beauty and the feeble wrong because of weakness.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

110. “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.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

111. “What we call Life is a condition of the soul. And the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

112. “Of all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist’s music deep, Now tell me if that any is. For gift or grace, surpassing this – He giveth His beloved sleep.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

113. “What monster have we here? A great Deed at this hour of day? A great just deed – and not for pay? Absurd – or insincere?”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

114. “My sun sets to raise again.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

115. “An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

116. “She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt’s pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

117. “Our Euripides the human, With his droppings of warm tears, and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

118. “At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

119. “Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

120. “Beloved, let us live so well our work shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our work.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

121. “For frequent tears have run; The colours from my life.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

122. “And there my little doves did sit With feathers softly brown And glittering eyes that showed their right To general Nature’s deep delight.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

123. “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.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

124. “Death forerunneth Love to win “Sweetest eyes were ever seen.””

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

125. “Thank God for grace, Ye who weep only! If, as some have done, Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place And touch but tombs, – look up! Those tears will run Soon in long rivers down the lifted face, And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

126. “I, who thought to sink, was caught up into love, and taught the whole of life in a new rhythm.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

127. “Men get opinions as boys learn to spell by reiteration chiefly.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

128. “Don’t get me wrong-painting’s all right. But now that we have photography, what’s the point?”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

129. “Since when was genius found respectable?”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

130. “My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

131. “Thou large-brain’d woman and large-hearted man.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

132. “Whatever’s lost, it first was won.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

133. “Souls are dangerous things to carry straight through all the spilt saltpetre of this world.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

134. “When the dust of death has choked a great man’s voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

135. “And is it not the chief good of money, the being free from the need of thinking of it?”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

136. “Folded eyes see brighter colors than the open ever do.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

137. “First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

138. “O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly in a plaintive mood, The holy name of Grief – holy herein, That, by the grief of One, came all our good.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

139. “New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

140. “Most illogical Irrational nature of our womanhood, That blushes one way, feels another way, And prays, perhaps another!”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

141. “The flower-girl’s prayer to buy roses and pinks, held out in the smoke, like stars by day.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

142. “A woman’s pity sometimes makes her mad.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

143. “Deep violets, you liken to The kindest eyes that look on you, Without a thought disloyal.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

144. “Thank you for the sympathy and interest which you have extended towards us in our heavy affliction. Even you cannot know all that we have lost; but God knows, and it has pleased Him to take away the blessing that He gave. And all must be right since He doeth all! Indeed we did not foresee this great grief! If we had we could not have felt it less; but I should not then have been denied the consolation of being with her at the last.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

145. “I cannot speak in happy tones.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

146. “With what cracked pitchers go we to deep wells In this world!”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

147. “Where Christ brings His cross He brings His presence; and where He is none are desolate, and there is no room for despair.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

148. “The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

149. “Every age, Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned By those who have not lived past it.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

150. “I worked with patience which means almost power.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning