"Bishop Blougram’s Apology", line 395; cited by Graham Greene as the epigraph he would choose for his novels.
Men and Women (1855)
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@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
Source: Robert Browning's Poetry
“Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
Source: A Death in the Desert (1864), Line 59.
Source: Dramatic Lyrics
“Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
Source: Browning's Paracelsus: Being the Text of Browning's Poem
“When the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something.”
"Bishop Blougram's Apology".
Men and Women (1855)
“Ignorance is not innocence but sin.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
“Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!”
"Fra Lippo Lippi, line 54.
Men and Women (1855)
Variant: Without love, our earth is a tomb
“Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
“Days decrease, / And autumn grows, autumn in everything.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
As quoted in Love's Way (1918) by Orison Swett Marden, p. 175; no earlier citation of this to Browning has been located.
Disputed
Variant: Love is energy of life.
“We loved, sir — used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was —
But then, how it was sweet!”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
"Confessions", line 34 (1864).
Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra
Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 1.
Context: Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?”
"Andrea del Sarto", line 98.
Men and Women (1855)
Source: Men and Women and Other Poems
“I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876).
Context: I find earth not gray but rosy;
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.
“Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.”
Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra
Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 12.
Context: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.
"Andrea del Sarto", line 70
"Less is more" is often misattributed to architects Buckminster Fuller or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is something of a motto for minimalist philosophy. It was used in 1774 by Christoph Martin Wieland.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
“Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”
Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra
Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 12.
Context: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.