The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
.pdfsick men’s dreams, dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight.
S. Wilkin (ed.) ‘Sir Thomas Browne’s Works’ (1835) vol. 4, p. 359 ‘On Dreams’
2.220 William Browne c.1590-1643
Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse;
Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother, Death, ere thou hast slain another, Fair and learn’d, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.
‘Epitaph on the Countess Dowager of Pembroke’
2.221 Sir William Browne 1692-1774
The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For Tories own no argument but force: With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs admit no force but argument.
Reply to Trapp’s epigram, in J. Nichols ‘Literary Anecdotes’ vol. 3 (1812) p. 330.
2.222 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-61
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.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 1, l. 456
Near all the birds
Will sing at dawn,—and yet we do not take The chaffering swallow for the holy lark.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 1, l. 951
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in’t.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 2, l. 952
I think it frets the saints in heaven to see How many desolate creatures on the earth Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 3, l. 1121
Nay, if there’s room for poets in this world A little overgrown (I think there is)
Their sole work is to represent the age, Their age, not Charlemagne’s...
King Arthur’s self
Was commonplace to Lady Guenever; And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat As Fleet Street to our poets.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 5, l. 210
Since when was genius found respectable?
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 6, l. 275
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 7, l. 105
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees, takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware More and more, from the first similitude.
‘Aurora Leigh’ (1857) bk. 7, l. 821
And kings crept out again to feel the sun.
‘Crowned and Buried’ (1844) st. 11
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years?
‘The Cry of the Children’ (1844) st. 1
And lips say, ‘God be pitiful,’ Who ne’er said, ‘God be praised.’
‘The Cry of the Human’ (1844) st. 1
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
‘Grief’ (1844)
Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death; Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe, Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it: the marble eyelids are not wet— If it could weep, it could arise and go.
‘Grief’ (1844)
Or from Browning some ‘Pomegranate’, which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’ (1844 st. 41
‘Yes,’ I answered you last night;
‘No,’ this morning, sir, I say. Colours seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day.
‘The Lady’s Yes’ (1844)
What was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
‘A Musical Instrument’ (1862)
Straightway I was ’ware,
So weeping, how a mystic shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair And a voice said in mastery while I strove...
‘Guess now who holds thee?’—’Death’, I said. But, there, The silver answer rang...’Not Death, but Love.’
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1850) no. 1
For frequent tears have run The colours from my life.
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1850) no. 8
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1850) no. 43
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1850) no. 43
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man.
‘To George Sand—A Desire’ (1844)
And the rolling anapaestic Curled like vapour over shrines!
‘Wine of Cyprus’ (1844) st. 10
2.223 Sir Frederick Browning 1896-1965
I think we might be going a bridge too far.
Expressing reservations about the Arnhem ‘Market Garden’ operation to Field Marshal Montgomery on 10 September 1944, in R. E. Urquhart ‘Arnhem’ (1958) p. 4
2.224 Robert Browning 1812-89
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things.
‘Abt Vogler’ (1864) st. 2
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
‘Abt Vogler’ (1864) st. 9
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
‘Abt Vogler’ (1864) st. 10
I feel for the common chord again...
The C Major of this life.
‘Abt Vogler’ (1864) st. 12
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?
‘Andrea del Sarto’ (1855) l. 97
Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,— It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be.
‘Any Wife to Any Husband’ (1855) st. 16
But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy,
We’ve still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!
‘Aristophanes’ Apology’ (1875) l. 409
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
‘Asolando’ (1889) ‘Epilogue’
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
‘Asolando’ (1889) ‘Epilogue’
I find earth not grey but rosy, Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All’s blue.
‘At the “Mermaid”’ (1876) st. 12
There spoke up a brisk little somebody, Critic and whippersnapper, in a rage To set things right.
‘Balaustion’s Adventure’ (1871) l. 306
Don’t you know,
I promised, if you’d watch a dinner out,
We’d see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps Over the glasses’ edge when dinner’s done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 15
Just when we are safest, there’s a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death, A chorus-ending from Euripides,—
And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as nature’s self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again,— The grand Perhaps!
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 182
All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt:
We called the chess-board white,—we call it black.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 209
Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things, The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demirep
That loves and saves her soul in new French books— We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 395
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 420
No, when the fight begins within himself, A man’s worth something.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 693
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 996
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? —That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright.
‘The Bishop Orders his Tomb’ (1845) l. 73
And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
‘The Bishop Orders his Tomb’ (1845) l. 80
I was so young, I loved him so, I had No mother, God forgot me, and I fell.
‘A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon’ (1843) act 1, sc. 3, l. 237
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
‘Boot and Saddle’ (1842)
How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come.
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 1
I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O’er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 2
I will speak now,
No longer watch you as you sit Reading by fire-light, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely.
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 23
When earth breaks up and heaven expands, How will the change strike me and you
In the house not made with hands?
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 27.
Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away!
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 39
If two lives join, there is oft a scar,
They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
‘By the Fireside’ (1855) st. 46
And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
‘Thinketh, He dwelleth i’ the cold o’ the moon. ‘Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise.
‘Caliban upon Setebos’ (1864) l. 22
‘Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
‘Caliban upon Setebos’ (1864) l. 102
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.’
‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ (1855) st. 34.
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind.
‘Christmas-Eve’ (1850) l. 226
The raree-show of Peter’s successor.
‘Christmas Eve’ (1850) l. 1242
For the preacher’s merit or demerit,
It were to be wished the flaws were fewer In the earthen vessel, holding treasure Which lies as safe in a golden ewer;
But the main thing is, does it hold good measure? Heaven soon sets right all other matters!
‘Christmas Eve’ (1850) l. 1311
And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.
‘Cleon’ (1855) l. 57
What is he buzzing in my ears? ‘Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?’ Ah, reverend sir, not I!
‘Confessions’ (1864) st. 1
We loved, sir—used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was— But then, how it was sweet!
‘Confessions’ (1864) st. 9
Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.
‘A Death in the Desert’ (1864) l. 59
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.
‘A Death in the Desert’ (1864) l. 482
Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,
Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are, Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
‘A Death in the Desert’ (1864) l. 586
With the beanflowers’ boon, And the blackbird’s tune, And May, and June!
‘De Gustibus’ (1855) pt. 1, l. 11
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary’s saying serves for me— (When fortune’s malice
Lost her—Calais)—
Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, ‘Italy’.
‘De Gustibus’ (1855) pt. 2, l. 39
Reads verse and thinks she understands.
‘Dîs Aliter Visum’ (1864) st. 4
Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair When gout and glory seat me there.
‘Dîs Aliter Visum’ (1864) st. 12
’Tis well averred,
A scientific faith’s absurd.
‘Easter-Day’ (1850) l. 123
At last awake
From life, that insane dream we take For waking now.
‘Easter-Day’ (1850) l. 479
Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs, The not-incurious in God’s handiwork.
‘An Epistle...of Karshish’ (1855)
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
‘Evelyn Hope’ (1855)
You will wake, and remember, and understand.
‘Evelyn Hope’ (1855)
So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts The teller.
‘Fifine at the Fair’ (1872) st. 32
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name’s sake.
‘The Flower’s Name’ (1845)
If you get simple beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents.
‘Fra Lippo Lippi’ (1855) l. 217
This world’s no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink.
‘Fra Lippo Lippi’ (1855) l. 313
Our low life was the level’s and the night’s; He’s for the morning.
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 23
This is our master, famous calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders.
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 27
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain:
‘Time to taste life,’ another would have said, ‘Up with the curtain!’
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 53
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he’d learn how to live— No end to learning.
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 75
He said, ‘What’s time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! Man has Forever.’
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 83
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.
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 113
Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying,
Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.
‘A Grammarian’s Funeral’ (1855) l. 145
The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, And again in his border see Israel set.
‘Holy-Cross Day’ (1855) st. 13
We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how At least we withstand Barabbas now!
‘Holy-Cross Day’ (1855) st. 18
Oh, to be in England Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!
‘Home-Thoughts, from Abroad’ (1845)
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
‘Home-Thoughts, from Abroad’ (1845)
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay.
‘Home-Thoughts, from the Sea’ (1845)
‘Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?’—say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
‘Home-Thoughts, from the Sea’ (1845)
‘With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart,’ once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
‘House’ (1876).
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three.
‘How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’ (1845) l. 1
A man can have but one life and one death,