Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

“You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.”

“World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain.”

“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive, half wishing they were dead to save the shame. The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow; They have drawn too near the fire of life, like g...”

“He lives most life whoever breathes most air.”

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

“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

“But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!”

“How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.”

“And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.”

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

“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 it.”

“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.'”

“What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.”

“What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?”

“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.”

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

“Since when was genius found respectable?”

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

“He said true things, but called them by wrong names.”