Background Image

...

The Best Things In Life Can Never Be Kept; They Must Be Given Away. A Smile, A Kiss, And Love If You Are Asking If I'd Hurt You, The Answer Is Never. If You Are Asking If I Love U,the Answer Is Forever. If You Are Asking If I Want U,the Answer Is I Do. If You Are Asking What I Value Most, The Answer Is You Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.

-Robert Browning

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Best Things In

Robert Browning

...

The Best Things In Life Can Never Be Kept; They Must Be Given Away. A Smile, A Kiss, And Love If You Are Asking If I'd Hurt You, The Answer Is Never. If You Are Asking If I Love U,the Answer Is Forever. If You Are Asking If I Want U,the Answer Is I Do. If You Are Asking What I Value Most, The Answer Is You Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Robert Browning

Once More On My Adventure Brave And New.

But Facts Are Facts And Flinch Not.

If Two Lives Join, There Is Oft A Scar. They Are One And One, With A Shadowy Third; One Near One Is Too Far.

Outside Are The Storms And Strangers: We — Oh, Close, Safe, Warm Sleep I And She, — I And She!

Love Is Energy Of Life.

Self Improvement

I Count Life Just A Stuff To Try The Soul's Strength On.

The Great Mind Knows The Power Of Gentleness.

Mid The Sharp, Short Emerald Wheat, Scarce Risen Three Fingers Well, The Wild Tulip At The End Of Its Tube, Blows Out Its Great Red Bell, Like A Thin Clear Bubble Of Blood, For The Children To Pick And Sell.

What I Aspired To Be And Was Not, Comforts Me.

Earth Changes, But Thy Soul And God Stand Sure.

I Was Made And Meant To Look For You And Wait For You And Become Yours Forever.

Genius Has Somewhat Of The Infantine; But Of The Childish Not A Touch Or Taint.

Boot, Saddle, To Horse, And Away!

Believeth With The Life, The Pain Shall Stop.

In The Morning Of The World, When Earth Was Nigher Heaven Than Now.

No, When The Fight Begins Within Himself, / A Man's Worth Something.

So, Fall Asleep Love, Loved By Me... For I Know Love, I Am Loved By Thee.

When A Man's Busy, Why Leisure Strikes Him As Wonderful Pleasure: 'faith, And At Leisure Once Is He? Straightway He Wants To Be Busy.

Aspire, Break Bounds. Endeavor To Be Good, And Better Still, Best.

But What If I Fail Of My Purpose Here? It Is But To Keep The Nerves At Strain, To Dry One's Eyes And Laugh At A Fall, And Baffled, Get Up And Begin Again.

Time'swheelsrunsbackor Stops: Potterand Clayendure.

One May Do Whatever One Likes. In Art, The Only Thing Is, To Make Sure That One Does Like It.

For Life, With All Its Yields Of Joy And Woe Is Just A Chance O' The Prize Of Learning Love.

I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists.

All The Breath And The Bloom Of The Year In The Bag Of One Bee; All The Wonder And Wealth Of The Mine In The Heart Of One Gem; In The Core Of One Pearl All The Shade And The Shine Of The Sea; Breath And Bloom, Shade And Shine,- Wonder, Wealth, And-how Far Above Them- Truth, That's Brighter Than Gem, Truth, That's Purer Than Pearl,- Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe- All Were For Me In The Kiss Of One Girl.

Look Not Down But Up!

That's The Wise Thrush; He Sings Each Song Twice Over, Lest You Should Think He Never Could Recapture The First Fine Careless Rapture!

What Youth Deemed Crystal, Age Finds Out Was Dew.

The Past Is Gained, Secure, And On Record.

Death Was Past, Life Not Come: So He Waited.

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

'tis Only When They Spring To Heaven That Angels Reveal Themselves To You.

'tis An Awkward Thing To Play With Souls.

Still More Labyrinthine Buds The Rose.

Shakespeare Was Of Us, Milton Was Of Us, Burns, Shelley, Were With Us. They Watch From Their Graves!

Our Aspirations Are Our Responsibilities.

Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

The Best Way To Excape His Ire Is, Not To Seem Too Happy.

Thou Art My Single Day, God Lends To Leaven What Were All Earth Else, With A Feel Of Heaven.

I Hear You Reproach, "but Delay Was Best, For Their End Was A Crime." Oh, A Crime Will Do As Well, I Reply, To Serve For A Test As A Virtue Golden Through And Through, Sufficient To Vindicate Itself And Prove Its Worth At A Moment's View! . . . . . . Let A Man Contend To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize, Be It What It Will! The Counter Our Lovers Staked Was Lost As Surely As If It Were Lawful Coin; And The Sin I Impute To Each Frustrate Ghost Is-the Unlit Lamp And The Ungirt Loin, Though The End In Sight Was A Vice, I Say.

Faultless To A Fault.

The Ultimate, Angels' Law, Indulging Every Instinct Of The Soul There Where Law, Life, Joy, Impulse Are One Thing!

When Is Man Strong Until He Feels Alone?

T'was A Thief Said The Last Kind Word To Christ. Christ Took The Kindness And Forgave The Theft.

Death: The Grand Perhaps.

If Thou Tastest A Crust Of Bread, Thou Tastest All The Stars And All The Heavens.

When Pain Ends, Gain Ends Too.

In Heaven I Yearn For Knowledge, Account All Else Inanity; On Earth I Confess An Itch For The Praise Of Fools - That's Vanity

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.

The Great Beacon Light God Sets In All, The Conscience Of Each Bosom.

Grow Old With Me! The Best Is Yet To Be.

Strike When Thou Wilt, The Hour Of Rest, But Let My Last Days Be My Best.

A Minute's Success Pays The Failure Of Years.

Oh, The Little More, And How Much It Is! And The Little Less, And What Worlds Away.

O Never Star Was Lost; Here We All Aspire To Heaven And There Is Heaven Above Us. If I Stoop Into A Dark Tremendous Sea Of Cloud, It Is But For A Time; I Press God's Lamp Close To My Breast; Its Splendor Soon Or Late Will Pierce The Gloom. I Shall Emerge Some Day.

Love Is The Energy Of Life.

Out Of Your Whole Life Give But A Moment! All Of Your Life That Has Gone Before, All To Come After It, -so You Ignore, So You Make Perfect The Present, Condense, In A Rapture Of Rage, For Perfection's Endowment, Thought And Feeling And Soul And Sense.

What? Was Man Made A Wheel-work To Wind Up, And Be Discharged, And Straight Wound Up Anew? No! Grown, His Growth Lasts; Taught, He Ne'er Forgets: May Learn A Thousand Things, Not Twice The Same.

It Was Roses, Roses, All The Way, With Myrtle Mixed In My Path Like Mad.

Hand Grasps At Hand, Eye Lights Eye In Good Friendship, And Great Hearts Expand And Grow One In The Sense Of This World's Life.

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.'"

Ah, Love, - You Are My Unutterable Blessing.....i Am In Full Sunshine Now.

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 Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

Best Is Yet To Come

No Work Begun Shall Ever Pause For Death.

The Trouble That Most Of Us Find With The Modern Matched Sets Of Clubs Is That They Don't Really Seem To Know Any More About The Game Than The Old Ones Did.

The Rain Set Early In Tonight, The Sullen Wind Was Soon Awake, It Tore The Elm-tops Down For Spite, And Did Its Best To Vex The Lake: I Listened With Heart Fit To Break. When Glided In Porphyria; Straight She Shut The Cold Out And The Storm, And Kneeled And Made The Cheerless Grate Blaze Up And All The Cottage Warm.

O Woman-country! Wooed Not Wed, Loved All The More By Earth's Male-lands, Laid To Their Hearts Instead.

"with This Same Key Shakespeare Unlocked His Heart" Once More! Did Shakespeare? If So, The Less Shakespeare He!

What A Thing Friendship Is - World Without End.

Night Conceals A World But Reveals A Universe.

There Shall Never Be One Lost Good! What Was, Shall Live As Before; The Evil Is Null, Is Nought, Is Silence Implying Sound; What Was Good Shall Be Good, With For Evil So Much Good More; On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven, A Perfect Round.

God Is In His Heaven, All's Right With The World.

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

To Me At Least Was Never Evening Yet, But Seemed Far Beautifuller Than Its Day.

The Body Sprang At Once To The Height, And Stayed; But The Soul,-no!

For Sudden The Worst Turns The Best To The Brave, The Black Minute's At End, And The Elements' Rage, The Fiend Voices That Rave, Shall Dwindle, Shall Blend, Shall Change, Shall Become First A Peace Out Of Pain, Then A Light, Then Thy Breast, O Thou Soul Of My Soul! I Shall Clasp Thee Again, And With God Be The Rest!

My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

Sing, Riding 's A Joy! For Me I Ride.

The Lie Was Dead And Damned, And Truth Stood Up Instead.

Make Us Happy And You Make Us Good.

God! Thou Art Love! I Build My Faith On That.

Where The Heart Lies, Let The Brain Lie Also.

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 Unperplext Seeking Shall Find Him.

Why Stay On The Earth Except To Grow.

All Service Is The Same With God.

I Hold That A Man Should Strive To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize.

Truth Is Within Ourselves. There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where The Truth Abides In Fullness.

Who Hears Music Feels His Solitude Peopled At Once.

Inspirational Music

Needs There Groan A World In Anguish Just To Teach Us Sympathy?

Truth Never Hurt The Teller.

Imperfection Means Perfection Hid.

All's Love, Yet All's Law.

I Give The Fight Up: Let There Be An End, A Privacy, An Obscure Nook For Me. I Want To Be Forgotten Even By God.

As Is Your Sort Of Mind, So Is Your Sort Of Search: You Will Find What You Desire.

How Good Is Man's Life, The Mere Living! How Fit To Employ All The Heart And The Soul And The Senses Forever In Joy!

Fair Or Foul The Lot Apportioned Life On Earth, We Bear Alike.

What So Wild As Words Are?

The Heavens And Earth Stay As They Were; My Heart Beats As It Beat: The Truth Remains The Truth.

God's Justice, Tardy Though It Prove Perchance, Rests Never On The Track Until It Reach Delinquency.

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most.

My Care Is For Myself; Myself Am Whole And Sole Reality.

There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where Truth Abides In Fullness;....and, To Know, Rather Consists In Opening Out A Way Where The Imprisoned Splendor May Escape, Then In Effecting Entry For A Light Supposed To Be Without.

Paracelsus At Times I Almost Dream I Too Have Spent A Life The Sages’ Way, And Tread Once More Familiar Paths. Perchance I Perished In An Arrogant Self-reliance Ages Ago; And In That Act A Prayer For One More Chance Went Up So Earnest, So Instinct With Better Light Let In By Death, That Life Was Blotted Out — Not So Completely But Scattered Wrecks Enough Of It Remain, Dim Memories, As Now, When Once More Seems The Goal In Sight Again.

What's A Man's Age? He Must Hurry More, That's All; Cram In A Day, What His Youth Took A Year To Hold.

We Mortals Cross The Ocean Of This World Each In His Average Cabin Of A Life; The Bests Not Big, The Worst Yields Elbowroom.

Autumn Wins You Best By This Its Mute Appeal To Sympathy For Its Decay.

Progress Is The Law Of Life: Man Is Not Man As Yet.

The Aim, If Reached Or Not, Makes Great The Life: Try To Be Shakespeare, Leave The Rest To Fate!

How Well I Know What I Mean To Do When The Long Dark Autumn Evenings Come, And Where, My Soul, Is Thy Pleasant Hue? With The Music Of All Thy Voices, Dumb In Life’s November Too! 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!

Success In Marriage Is More Than Finding The Right Person: It Is Being The Right Person.

And I Have Written Three Books On The Soul, Proving Absurd All Written Hitherto, And Putting Us To Ignorance Again.

But There Are Times When Patience Proves At Fault.

If You Can Sit At Set Of Sun And Count The Deeds That You Have Done And Counting Find Oneself-denying Act, One Word That Eased The Heart Of Him That Heard. One Glance Most Kind, Which Fell Like Sunshine Where He Went, Then You May Count That Day Well Spent.

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

What's The Earth With All Its Art, Verse, Music, Worth — Compared With Love, Found, Gained, And Kept?

Wedding Anniversary

At Last Awake From Life, That Insane Dream We Take For Waking Now.

No! Let Me Taste The Whole Of It, Fare Like My Peers, The Heroes Of Old, Bear The Brunt, In A Minute Pay Glad Life's Arrears Of Pain, Darkness And Cold.

Poetry, Like Love, Is Something We Never Truly Say Goodbye To.

Wander At Will, Day After Day,-- Wander Away, Wandering Still-- Soul That Canst Soar! Body May Slumber: Body Shall Cumber Soul-flight No More.

Rejoice That Man Is Hurled, From Change To Change Unceasingly, His Soul's Wings Never Furled!

Never The Time And The Place And The Loved One All Together.

Oh The Wild Joys Of Living! The Leaping From Rock To Rock ... The Cool Silver Shock Of The Plunge In A Pool's Living Waters.

There Is No Truer Truth Obtainable By Man Than Comes Of Music

Never Brag, Never Bluster, Never Blush.

Fail I Alone, In Words And Deeds? Why, All Men Strive And Who Succeeds?

So Munch On, Crunch On, Take Your Nuncheon, Breakfast, Supper, Dinner, Luncheon!

Twere Too Absurd To Slight For The Hereafter The Todays Delight!

I Dare Not So Honor My Mere Wishes And Prayers As To Put Them For A Moment Beside Your Noble Acts; But This Know, I Would Rather Submit To The Worst Of Deaths, So Far As Pain Goes, Than Have A Single Dog Or Cat Tortured On The Pretence Of Sparing Me A Twinge Or Two.

Might She Have Loved Me? Just As Well She Might Have Hated, Who Can Tell!

How Very Hard It Is To Be A Christian!

The Only Fault's With Time; All Men Become Good Creatures: But So Slow!

Such Ever Was Love's Way: To Rise, It Stoops.

You Should Not Take A Fellow Eight Years Old And Make Him Swear To Never Kiss The Girls.

Over My Head His Arm He Flung, Against The World.

Of Power Does Man Possess No Particle: Of Knowledge-just So Much As Show That Still It Ends In Ignorance On Every Side.

Oh, To Be In England Now That April's There, And Whoever Wakes In England Sees, Some Morning, Unaware.

One Wise Man's Verdict Outweighs All The Fools'.

Hatred And Cark And Care, What Place Have They / In Yon Blue Liberality Of Heaven?.

All Poetry Is Putting The Infinite Within The Finite.

Grow Old With Me. The Best Is Yet To Be. The Last Of Life For Which The First Was Made.

It's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce: It's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad.

Praise Is Deeper Than The Lips

I Know A Mount, The Gracious Sun Perceives First When He Visits, Last, Too, When He Leaves The World; And, Vainly Favored, It Repays The Day-long Glory Of His Steadfast Gaze By No Change Of Its Large Calm Front Of Snow.

It's Like Those Eerie Stories Nurses Tell, Of How Some Actor On A Stage Played Death, With Pasteboard Crown, Sham Orb And Tinselled Dart, And Called Himself The Monarch Of The World; Then, Going In The Tire-room Afterward, Because The Play Was Done, To Shift Himself, Got Touched Upon The Sleeve Familiarly, The Moment He Had Shut The Closet Door, By Death Himself. Thus God Might Touch A Pope At Unawares, Ask What His Baubles Mean, And Whose Part He Presumed To Play Just Now. Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain And True!

Who Knows But The World May End Tonight

A Man In Armour Is His Armour's Slave.

Man Partly Is And Wholly Hopes To Be.

From The Sprinkled Isles, Lily On Lily, That O'erlace The Sea.

Talent Should Minister To Genius.

My Business Is Not To Remake Myself, But To Make The Absolute Best Of What God Made.

Make No More Giants, God!but Elevate The Race At Once!

The Sea Heaves Up, Hangs Loaded O'er The Land, Breaks There, And Buries Its Tumultuous Strength.

Would You Have Your Songs Endure? Build On The Human Heart.

Lofty Designs Must Close In Like Effects.

Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe, All Were For Me, In The Kiss Of One Girl.

Sappho Survives, Because We Sing Her Songs; And Eschylus, Because We Read His Plays!

Where The Apple Reddens Never Pry - Lest We Lose Our Edens, Eve And I.

Most Progress Is Most Failure.

If All The World Is A Stage And Life Is Just A Play Upon It, Get Me Two Seats In The Stalls.

The Sad Rhyme Of The Men Who Proudly Clung To Their First Fault, And Withered In Their Pride.

Desire Joy And Thank God For It. Renounce It, If Need Be, For Other's Sake. That's Joy Beyond Joy.

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

Days Decrease, / And Autumn Grows, Autumn In Everything.

Dear, Dead Women, With Such Hair, Too--what's Become Of All The Gold Used To Hang And Brush Their Bosoms?

I Say, The Acknowledgment Of God In Christaccepted By Thy Reason, Solves For Theeall Questions In The Earth And Out Of It,and Has So Far Advanced Thee To Be Wise.

Of What I Call God, And Fools Call Nature.

Go In Thy Native Innocence, Rely On What Thou Hast Of Virtue, Summon All, For God Towards Thee Hath Done His Part, Do Thine.

Finds Progress, Man's Distinctive Mark Alone, Not God's, And Not The Beast's; God Is, They Are, Man Partly Is, And Wholly Hopes To Be.

That We Devote Ourselves To God, Is Seen In Living Just As Though No God There Were.

Thought Is The Soul Of Act.

O Lyric Love, Half Angel And Half Bird. And All A Wonder And A Wild Desire.

All Service Ranks The Same With God,- With God, Whose Puppets, Best And Worst, Are We: There Is No Last Nor First.

God Smiles As He Has Always Smiled; Ere Suns And Moons Could Wax And Wane, Ere Stars Were Thundergirt, Or Piled The Heavens, God Thought On Me His Child; Ordained A Life For Me, Arrayed Its Circumstances, Every One To The Minutest; Ay, God Said This Head This Hand Should Rest Upon Thus, Ere He Fashioned Star Or Sun.

I See My Way As Birds Their Trackless Way. I Shall Arrive,- What Time, What Circuit First, I Ask Not; But Unless God Send His Hail Or Blinding Fire-balls, Sleet Or Stifling Snow, In Some Time, His Good Time, I Shall Arrive: He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time.

To Do Good Things In The World, First You Must Know Who You Are And What Gives Meaning To Your Life.

Can We Love But On Condition That The Thing We Love Must Die?

A Lion May Die Of An Ass's Kick.

Lose Who May-i Still Can Say, Those Who Win Heaven, Blest Are They!

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See, Nor Is She Spoiled, I Take It, If A Crown Completes The Forehead Pale And Tresses Pure.

But How Carve Way I' The Life That Lies Before, If Bent On Groaning Ever For The Past?

This Could But Have Happened Once,- And We Missed It, Lost It Forever.

Love, Hope, Fear, Faith - These Make Humanity; These Are Its Sign And Note And Character.

On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven A Perfect Round.

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?

Escape Me? Never, Beloved! While I Am I, And You Are You.

Unless You Can Love, As The Angels May, With The Breadth Of Heaven Betwixt You; Unless You Can Dream That His Faith Is Fast, Through Behoving And Unbeloving; Unless You Can Die When The Dream Is Past- Oh, Never Call It Loving!

Truth Is Within Ourselves.

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

Life Is An Empty Dream.

Say Not "a Small Event!" Why "small"? Costs It More Pain That This Ye Call A "great Event" Should Come To Pass From That? Untwine Me From The Mass Of Deeds Which Make Up Life, One Deed Power Shall Fall Short In Or Exceed!

Are There Not, Dear Michael, Two Points In The Adventure Of The Diver,- One, When A Beggar He Prepares To Plunge; One, When A Prince He Rises With His Pearl? Festus, I Plunge.

Just For A Handful Of Silver He Left Us, Just For A Riband To Stick In His Coat.

In God's Good Time, Which Does Not Always Fall On Saturday When The World Looks For Wages.

That Moment She Was Mine, Mine, Fair, Perfectly Pure And Good: I Found A Thing To Do, And All Her Hair In One Long Yellow String I Wound Three Times Her Little Throat Around, And Strangled Her. No Pain Felt She; I Am Quite Sure She Felt No Pain. As A Shut Bud That Holds A Bee, I Warily Oped Her Lids: Again Laughed The Blue Eyes Without A Stain. And I Untightened The Next Tress About Her Neck; Her Cheek Once More Blushed Bright Beneath My Burning Kiss . . .

A People Is But The Attempt Of Many To Rise To The Completer Life Of One; And Those Who Live As Models For The Mass Are Singly Of More Value Than They All.

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.

How He Lies In His Rights Of A Man! Death Has Done All Death Can. And Absorbed In The New Life He Leads, He Recks Not, He Heeds Nor His Wrong Nor My Vengeance; Both Strike On His Senses Alike, And Are Lost In The Solemn And Strange Surprise Of The Change.

Earth Being So Good, Would Heaven Seem Best?

Motherhood: All Love Begins And Ends There.

Trending Author

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Category