Emily Dickinson > Quotes

“Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all-- then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“Mine Enemy is growing old --
I have at last Revenge --
The Palate of the Hate departs --
If any would avenge

Let him be quick -- the Viand flits --
It is a faded Meat --
Anger as soon as fed is dead --
'Tis starving makes it fat”
― Emily Dickinson, I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

“Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea
Past the houses, past the headlands
Into deep eternity!
Bred as we, among the mountains
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?”
― Emily Dickinson

“It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sunsets sterner, and Gibraltar lights make the village foreign. November always seemed to me the Norway of the year. ------ is still with the sister who put her child in an ice nest last Monday forenoon. The redoubtable God! I notice where Death has been introduced, he frequently calls, making it desirable to forestall his advances.”
― Emily Dickinson, Lettere 1845-1886

“I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in Heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot, As if a chart were given.”
― Emily Dickinson

“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems

“Existence has overpowered Books. Today I slew a Mushroom.”
― Emily Dickinson

“A precious mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind.
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty,
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were born.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize just so.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“I stepped from Plank to Plank
So slow and cautiously
The Stars about my Head I felt,
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye....”
― Emily Dickinson

“We dream — it is good we are dreaming —
It would hurt us — were we awake —
But since it is playing — kill us,
And we are playing — shriek —

What harm? Men die — externally —
It is a truth — of Blood —
But we — are dying in Drama —
And Drama — is never dead —

Cautious — We jar each other —
And either — open the eyes —
Lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake —
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite —
With just an Age — and Name —
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian —
It's prudenter — to dream —”
― Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson's Poems

“Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems

“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,
For fear the numbers fuse —

If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee,
That will not state — its sting.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“My business is circumference.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I'm a Nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? There's a pair of us- don't tell!”
― Emily Dickinson

“Para viajar lejos, no hay mejor nave que un libro.”
― Emily Dickinson

“THE MOON was but a chin of gold
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond;
Her cheek like beryl stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities of blue.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“The only secret people keep is immortality.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Sweet hour, blessed hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper goodbye again.”
― Emily Dickinson, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

“AMPLE make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I SEE thee better in the dark,
I do not need a light.
The love of thee a prism be
Excelling violet.

I see thee better for the years
That hunch themselves between,
The miner’s lamp sufficient be
To nullify the mine.

And in the grave I see thee best—
Its little panels be
A-glow, all ruddy with the light
I held so high for thee!

What need of day to those whose dark
Hath so surpassing sun,
It seem it be continually
At the meridian?”
― Emily Dickinson

“Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“MY river runs to thee:
Blue sea, wilt welcome me?

My river waits reply.
Oh sea, look graciously!

I ’ll fetch thee brooks
From spotted nooks,—

Say, sea,
Take me!”
― Emily Dickinson

“Who has not found the heaven below
Will fail of it above.
God's residence is next to min,
His furniture is love.”
― Emily Dickinson