xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“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.”

Robert Browning After

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

“The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,
Some stealthy tricks to better beasts unknown
That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts
And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts.”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

“Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"De Gustibus", line 586.
Men and Women (1855)
Variant: Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

“Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Never the Time and the Place" (1883).

“How good is man's life, the mere living!
How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses
Forever in joy!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Saul", ix.
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

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

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Rabbi Ben Ezra.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad", line 14.
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)

“This could but have happened once,—
And we missed it, lost it forever.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Youth and Art, xvii.
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!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Instans Tyrannus, vii.
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.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Women and Roses.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Womanliness means only motherhood;
All love begins and ends there.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

The Inn Album (1875).

“Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men.”

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 180.

“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!”

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Rabbi Ben Ezra.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
Boasts two soul-sides,—one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her!”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Stanza xvii.
One Word More (1855)

“The curious crime, the fine
Felicity and flower of wickedness.”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book X: The Pope, line 590.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

“Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.”

Robert Browning Paracelsus

Part 1.
Paracelsus (1835)

“Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Bells and Pomegranates No. III: Dramatic Lyrics: Count Gismond (1842), xix.

“I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.”

Robert Browning In a Balcony

In a Balcony.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

The lost Leader, i.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Better have failed in the high aim, as I,
Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed,—
As, God be thanked! I do not.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

The Inn Album, iv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)