a man's reach should exceed his grasp
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An English literature major at Brown University in Rhode Island, Paterno was a voracious reader whose favorite sayings included Robert Browning's "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
From Chicago Tribune ● Jan. 23, 2012
Robert Browning put this truth into the mouth of Andrea del Sarto in one of the strongest lines in all English verse, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp."
From Socialism: Positive and Negative by La Monte, Robert Rives
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"
From To Love by Peterson, Margaret
The text of that whole poem is found in the line Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.
From Robert Browning: How to Know Him by Phelps, William Lyon
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp," is Browning's rebuke to the merely prudent.
From Hidden from the Prudent The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 by Jones, Paul
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
