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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

Poet
Born On
1806-03-06
Died On
1861-06-29
Birth Place
Kelloe, Durham, England
Death Place
Florence, Italy
Birth Sign
pisces
Father
Edward Barrett Moulton
Mother
Mary Graham-Clarke
Spouse
Robert Browning
Nationality
British
Education
At Home
Writers, Poets

True, that this adroit poet is best remembered for ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ as well as her romantic relationship with husband and fellow poet, Robert Browning, but there is more to this exceptional writer.

  • A professional poet who was popular even before her marriage to Browning, Elizabeth was an avid social rights activists. Through her writing she condemned heinous practices such as slavery (despite her father showing his dissent). She even wrote to John Ruskin, an art critic during her time, “I belong to a family of West Indian slaveholders, and if I believed in curses, I should be afraid”.
  • She protested against child labor through the poem, ‘The Cry of the Children’. Incidentally, as we know from the books by Charles Dickens, child labor was the norm of the day in British society.
  • Once again, the importance of women was rarely acknowledged in the Victorian era, and her work, ‘Aurora Leigh’ advocated equal rights of the fairer sex, especially in the professional field.
  • Poetry aside, her prose was so impeccable that revered American writers, Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickenson were inspired by her works. In fact, Poe observed of Elizabeth’s works in the Broadway Journal, “her poetic inspiration is the highest—we can conceive of nothing more august. Her sense of Art is pure in itself.” As an acknowledgement of the praise, Barrett applauded Poe’s ‘The Raven’, which he in turn dedicated to her.

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Light tomorrow with today!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

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 it.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Who so loves believes the impossible.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A woman is always younger than a man at equal years.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For tis not in mere death that men die most.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 gnats, and flare up bodily, wings and all. What then? Who's sorry for a gnat or girl?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Since when was genius found respectable?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

He lives most life whoever breathes most air.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning