Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Quotes about life

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was English poet, author. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 176 quotes44 likes

“Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Source: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Barrett 1845-1846 Vol I

“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 a girl?”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Source: A Little Book Of Love Poems

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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

“Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Bk. I, l. 210-214. Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) Context: Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–' 'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief) 'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone, And none was left to love in all the world.

“Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot
My soul's full meaning into future years,
That they should lend it utterance, and salute
Love that endures, from life that disappears!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXI
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)

“And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

St. 23 -24.
De Profundis (1862)
Context: p>I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.</p