Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

“For tis not in mere death that men die most.”

“An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.”

“Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.We sit beside the headstone thus,And wish that name were carved for us.The moss reprints more tenderlyThe hard types of the mason's knife,As Heaven's sweet life renews earth's lifeWith which we're tired, my heart and I ....In this abundant earth no doubtIs little room for things worn out:Disdain them, break them, throw them by!And if before the days grew roughWe once were loved, used, - well enough,I think, we've fared, my heart and I.”

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

“Love me sweet With all thou art Feeling, thinking, seeing; Love me in the Lightest part, Love me in full Being.”

“I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.”

“If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.”

“And wilt thou have me fashion into speechThe love I bear thee, finding words enough,And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,Between our faces, to cast light on each? -I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teachMy hand to hold my spirits so far offFrom myself--me--that I should bring thee proofIn words, of love hid in me out of reach.Nay, let the silence of my womanhoodCommend my woman-love to thy belief, -Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,And rend the garment of my life, in brief,By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.”

“What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?”

“My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.”

“No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.”

“Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!”

“Quick-loving hearts ... may quickly loathe.”

“Good aims not always make good books.”

“It is rather whenWe gloriously forget ourselves, and plungeSoul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth--'Tis then we get the right good from a book.”

“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

“The wisest word man reaches is the humblest he can speak.”

“And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.”

“First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And, ever since, it grew more clean and white.”