Robert Browning: Thing

“That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.

“Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry —
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book I : The Ring and the Book.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

“Let us cry, "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"”

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 70.

Soul , Help

“In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power —
And thus we half-men struggle.”

Robert Browning

Source: Robert Browning's Poetry

Men , World

“Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"Bishop Blougram’s Apology", line 395; cited by Graham Greene as the epigraph he would choose for his novels.
Men and Women (1855)

“If you get simple beauty and naught else,
You get about the best thing God invents.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"Fra Lippo Lippi", line 217.
Men and Women (1855)
Source: The Poems of Robert Browning

God , Beauty

“A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.
Give it me back! The thing's restorative
I'the touch and sight.”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book I : The Ring and the Book.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

Life , Secret , Books , Heart

“What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven;
Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.”

Robert Browning

Old Pictures in Florence, xvii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Art , Learning , Perfection

“Can we love but on condition that the thing we love must die?”

Robert Browning

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

Love

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

Robert Browning

A Death in the Desert (1864)

Life , Law , Angels , Soul

“What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets:
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.”

Robert Browning

A Death in the Desert (1864)

Learning , Forgetting

“That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)

World , God

“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.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"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)

God , Painting , Light , Dreams

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

Robert Browning Men and Women

Source: Men and Women (1855) "Bishop Blougram's Apology", line 996.