Emily Dickinson > Quotes

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
― Emily Dickinson

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
― Emily Dickinson

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”
― Emily Dickinson

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Saying nothing sometimes says the most.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I dwell in possibility…”
― Emily Dickinson

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”
― Emily Dickinson

“This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me”
― Emily Dickinson

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane”
― Emily Dickinson

“I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!”
― Emily Dickinson

“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
― Emily Dickinson

“A word is dead when it's been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Bring me the sunset in a cup.”
― Emily Dickinson

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
― Emily Dickinson

“There is no Frigate like a book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry...”
― Emily Dickinson

“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”
― Emily Dickinson

“How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Truth is so rare, it is delightful to tell it.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”
― Emily Dickinson

“PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to...to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry.”
― Emily Dickinson

“We turn not older with years but newer every day.”
― Emily Dickinson

“The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul--BOOKS.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Hold dear to your parents for it is a scary and confusing world without them.”
― Emily Dickinson

“That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality”
― Emily Dickinson

“Till I loved I never lived.”
― Emily Dickinson

“We outgrow love like other things and put it in a drawer, till it an antique fashion shows like costumes grandsires wore.”
― Emily Dickinson

“We never know how high we are till we are called to rise. Then if we are true to form our statures touch the skies.”
― Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Heart, we will forget him,

You and I, tonight!

You must forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.”
― Emily Dickinson

“The lovely flowers
embarrass me.
They make me regret
I am not a bee...”
― Emily Dickinson

“I felt it shelter to speak to you.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“They might not need me; but they might.
I'll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.”
― Emily Dickinson

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“Parting is all we know of Heaven,
and all we need of Hell.”
― Emily Dickinson

“An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I tasted life.”
― Emily Dickinson

“But a Book is only the Heart's Portrait- every Page a Pulse.”
― Emily Dickinson

“How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?”
― Emily Dickinson

“Judge tenderly of me.”
― Emily Dickinson

“If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by,
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

“I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes;
I wonder if It weighs like Mine,
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the Date of Mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if They have to try,
And whether, could They choose between,
It would not be, to die.

I note that Some --
gone patient long --
At length, renew their smile.
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil.

I wonder if when Years have piled,
Some Thousands -- on the Harm
Of early hurt -- if such a lapse
Could give them any Balm;

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger Pain
By Contrast with the Love.

The Grieved are many,
I am told;
The reason deeper lies, --
Death is but one
and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's Grief of Want
and Grief of Cold, --
A sort they call "Despair";
There's Banishment from native Eyes,
In sight of Native Air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the Cross,
And how they're mostly worn,
Still fascinated to presume
That Some are like My Own.”
― Emily Dickinson, I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

“A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.”
― Emily Dickinson