“For I say this is death and the sole death,—
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest.”

—  Robert Browning

A Death in the Desert (1864)

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 "For I say this is death and the sole death,— When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from …" by Robert Browning?
Robert Browning photo
Robert Browning 179
English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era 1812–1889

Related quotes

Angelus Silesius photo

“Who would expect it so?
From darkness light is brought,
Life rises out of Death,
And Something comes from Naught.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

“I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness — that the darkness flung me —
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"90 North," lines 28-32
Blood for a Stranger (1942)
Context: I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness — that the darkness flung me —
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

Emil M. Cioran photo

“The deepest and most organic death is death in solitude, when even light becomes a principle of death. In such moments you will be severed from life, from love, smiles, friends and even from death. And you will ask yourself if there is anything besides the nothingness of the world and your own nothingness.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

Meister Eckhart photo

“Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian
Norman Mailer photo

“Kennedy's most characteristic quality is the remote and private air of a man who has traversed some lonely terrain of experience, of loss and gain, of nearness to death, which leaves him isolated from the mass of others.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Mircea Eliade photo

“Light does not come from light, but from darkness.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

“The only way to remove pain from death is to remove love from life.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Walk

“When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

--from WHEN DEATH COMES”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Variant: When it’s over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

John Cowper Powys photo

“The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.”

John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) British writer, lecturer and philosopher

Source: The Complex Vision (1920), Chapter I
Context: This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.

Related topics