“Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?”

Dis aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures throu…" by Robert Browning?

Robert Browning179

English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era 1812–1889

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 108

“Let us love the passing hour, let us hurry up and enjoy our time.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

The Lake (1820), st. 9

“Let us desire to be like our brethren which be saints in Heaven, that will right nought but God’s will and are well pleased both with hiding and with shewing. For I saw soothly in our Lord’s teaching, the more we busy us to know His secret counsels in this or any other thing, the farther shall we be from the knowing thereof.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 33

“The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Essay published in The Advertiser (1748) http://thingsabove.freerovin.com/samadams.htm and later reprinted in The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams, Volume 1 (1865), by William Vincent Wells  <br class="br">Context: Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves. It is not, I say, unfrequent to see such instances, though at the same time I esteem it a justice due to my country to say that it is not without shining examples of the contrary kind; — examples of men of a distinguished attachment to this same liberty I have been describing; whom no hopes could draw, no terrors could drive, from steadily pursuing, in their sphere, the true interests of their country; whose fidelity has been tried in the nicest and tenderest manner, and has been ever firm and unshaken.<br>The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.

“We are the beat of nature's heart,
the earth is our heaven
and the sun our breath,
through our heart journey's
the eternity unfolds and encircles us
with her gentle hands,
there is no end or return, no answer,
just one spark flickers.”

alexis karpouzos

poetry and spirituality