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Quotes from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed — Robert Browning

1812–1889 England

← All quotes by Robert Browning

39 quotes

Sky—what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

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

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

O woman-country! wooed not wed,
Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

If two lives join, there is oft a scar.
They are one and one, with a shadowy third;
One near one is too far.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Just my vengeance complete,
The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
So, I was afraid!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Wanting is—what?
Summer redundant,
Blueness abundant,
Where is the blot?

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart" once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

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!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

How sad and bad and mad it was!
But then, how it was sweet!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

The sin I impute to each frustrute ghost
Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.
And absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

So may a glory from defect arise.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Good, to forgive;
Best, to forget!
Living, we fret;
Dying, we live.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce;
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Browning (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.