Robert Browning

England
7 May 1812 // 12 Dec 1889
Poet, Playwright

Quotes

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Sappho survives, because we sing her songs;
And aeschylus, because we read his plays!

Cleon
Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity;
These are its sign, and note and character.
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung
To their first fault, and withered in their pride.

Paracelsus
All that is, at all,
Lasts ever. past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.

Rabbi ben Ezra
They are perfect; how else? they shall never change:
We are faulty; why not? we have time in store.

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

By the Fireside
If two lives join, there is oft a scar.
They are one and one, with a shadowy third;
One near one is too far.
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.

Paracelsus
The ultimate, angels' law,
Indulging every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!

A Death in the Desert
All service ranks the same with God,
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.

Pippa Passes
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays