Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear.
Read & copy the quotation
“And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Download image (JPG)

Source
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Date
1850
Meaning

Meaning of “And, though I have grown serene And strong…”

The speaker recognizes real growth in serenity and strength while admitting that earlier sorrow still leaves a fear that can return.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet XXXVI; Project Gutenberg #2002. The growth is emotional and relational within the poem, not a clinical recovery benchmark.

Primary / edition source ↗

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

Courage Quotes About Acting Despite FearFearGriefGrowth MindsetHealingLoveResilience Quotes About Recovery & AdaptationSadStrength
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
It is not a lost year, but one that may prove the most helpful of any you ever know.
Read & copy

“It is not a lost year, but one that may prove the most helpful of any you ever know.”

Louisa May Alcott · Jo's Boys · 1886
Voice: Fictional character · Jo Bhaer
Meaning & context

A painful or disappointing period can still become useful experience when it changes judgment, humility, resolve, and the way a person begins again.

Source details

Jo's Boys; the reassurance follows a setback and reframes a difficult year as experience that may later prove unusually helpful rather than simply wasted time.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Read & copy

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley · Ode to the West Wind · 1820
Meaning & context

The seasonal image turns hardship into a temporary phase: decline can contain the possibility of renewal even when that renewal is not yet visible.

Source details

Final line of Ode to the West Wind; the changing seasons become a metaphor for historical and personal renewal.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow.
Read & copy

“Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow.”

Seneca · Moral Letters to Lucilius — Letter 63 · c. 65
Meaning & context

Grief is neither forbidden nor allowed to consume everything; the line recommends honest mourning held within proportion.

Source details

Letter 63, on grief for lost friends, argues against both emotional numbness and endless mourning.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.
Read & copy

“Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.”

Emily Brontë · Remembrance — Emily Brontë · 1846
Meaning & context

The speaker describes learning to sustain life after joy itself no longer provides the support it once did, making adaptation an explicit result of suffering.

Source details

“Remembrance,” Project Gutenberg #1019. The line follows the collapse of earlier dreams and is literary reflection on endurance, not a prescription to avoid joy or support.

↓ Download image (JPG)