Elizabeth Barrett Browning Men Quotations

Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight out of man's reach, on the hill. God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Yet half the beast is the great god Pan, To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain-- For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds of the river.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

The man, most man, works best for men: and, if most man indeed, he gets his manhood plainest from his soul.

Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.

What frightens me is that men are content with what is not life at all.

For 'Tis not in mere death that men die most.

We all have known good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax; Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs; And damned the general world for standing up. Now, may the good God pardon all good men!

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach

But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!

But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men.

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

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

All actual heroes are essential men, And all men possible heroes.

A woman's always younger than a man at equal years.

A man may love a woman perfectly, and yet by no means ignorantly maintain a thousand women have not larger eyes. Enough that she alone has looked at him with eyes that, large or small, have won his soul.

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell by reiteration chiefly.

But I love you, sir: And when a woman says she loves a man, The man must hear her, though he love her not.

How joyously the young sea-mew Lay dreaming on the waters blue, Whereon our little bark had thrown A little shade, the only one; But shadows ever man pursue.

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us . . . . That the wisest word man reaches Is the humblest he can speak?

You believe In God, for your part?--that He who makes Can make good things from ill things, best from worst, As men plant tulips upon dunghills when They wish them finest.

... books are men of higher stature ...

Most illogical Irrational nature of our womanhood, That blushes one way, feels another way, And prays, perhaps another!

The man, most man, Works best for men, and, if most men indeed, He gets his manhood plainest from his soul: While, obviously, this stringent soul itself Obeys our old rules of development; The Spirit ever witnessing in ours, And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul, Evolving it sublimely.

A woman cannot do the thing she ought, which means whatever perfect thing she can, in life, in art, in science, but she fears to let the perfect action take her part and rest there: she must prove what she can do before she does it, -- prate of woman's rights, of woman's mission, woman's function, till the men (who are prating, too, on their side) cry, A woman's function plainly is... to talk. Poor souls, they are very reasonably vexed!

Eve is a twofold mystery.

May the good God pardon all good men.

Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

Thou large-brain'd woman and large-hearted man.

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

A great man leaves clean work behind him, and requires no sweeper up of the chips.

With stammering lips and insufficient sound I strive and struggle to deliver right the music of my nature.

The works of women are symbolical. We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, producing what? A pair of slippers, sir, to put on when you're weary -- or a stool. To stumble over and vex you... ''curse that stool!'' Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean and sleep, and dream of something we are not, but would be for your sake. Alas, alas! This hurts most, this... that, after all, we are paid the worth of our work, perhaps.