Quote#Books & Reading
Of writing many books there is no end
Quote byElizabeth Barrett Browning · 1806–1861
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Aurora Leigh (1857), Bk. I, l. 1.
English (original)
Of writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine,— Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
More from Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat.
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
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—
Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed 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 unbehoving;
By thunders of white silence.
Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man.