a man's reach should exceed his grasp

1. Words from a poem by Robert Browning, suggesting that, to achieve anything worthwhile, a person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible.

Example Sentences

He was, after all, the mayor who liked to quote the poet Robert Browning, urging that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”

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Cooney famously said, “Children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting … . It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand … a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. So should a child’s.”

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She says what happened to Hillary “really kills me. Years ago I gave a speech about language and how women are described compared to men. You know, he’s assertive, but she’s aggressive. He’s commanding, but she’s demanding. And it really applied to Hillary Clinton. It has been said that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Why can’t that be true for a woman?”

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It seems to me that Mill's melancholy could be summed up in one line from Robert Browning's Andrea del Sarto: A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

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“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” Fawcett notes, and so, perhaps, should the reach of any filmmaker trying to get a handle on this particular mystery.

Read more on Los Angeles Times