lu > lu's Quotes

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

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

“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
― 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

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”
― Emily Dickinson

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

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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

“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?

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.”
― Zhuangzi

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'I exist.' In thousands of agonies -- I exist. I'm tormented on the rack -- but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar -- I exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love...I sought what I might love, in love with loving.”
― Augustine of Hippo