Emily Dickinson Quotes

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.

That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears a Human soul.

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

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

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

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.

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

Till I loved I never lived.

The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care

Heart, we will forget him,

You and I, tonight!

You must forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

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

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

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

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.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind-

Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant/Success in Circuit lies...

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld, -
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies, -
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

She died-this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,-
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity

There is a pain – so utter –
It swallows substance up –
Then covers the Abyss with Trance –
So Memory can step
Around – across – opon it –
As one within a Swoon –
Goes safely – where an open eye –
Would drop Him – Bone by Bone.

A great hope fell
You heard no noise
The ruin was within.

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?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us - don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

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.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

A wounded dear leaps the highest

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind -
As if my Brain had split -
I tried to match it - Seam by Seam -
But could not make it fit.

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!

Inebriate of Air - am I -
And Debauchee of Dew -
Reeling - thro endless summer days -
From Inns of Molten Blue -

One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted -
One need not be a House -
The Brain has Corridors - surpassing
Material Place -

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

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, -
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee -

Is Bliss then, such Abyss,
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?

I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my Boot -
For yet to buy another Pair
is possible,
At any store -

But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more -

Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye....

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Success is counted sweetest by those ne'er succeed.

The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide,
Earth a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.

Faith is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see,
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.

Kein Schiff trägt uns besser in ferne Länder, als ein Buch.

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

When Jesus tells us about his Father, we distrust him. When he shows us his Home, we turn away, but when he confides to us that he is 'acquainted with Grief', we listen, for that also is an Acquaintance of our own.

Nature is a haunted house-but Art-is a house that tries to be haunted.

Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

Bless God, he went as soldiers,
His musket on his breast -
Grant God, he charge the bravest
Of all the martial blest!

Please God, might I behold him
In epauletted white -
I should not fear the foe then -
I should not fear the fight!

Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day -

Let me not mar that perfect dream
By an auroral stain,
But so adjust my daily night
That it will come again.

This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me

The Soul selects her own Society.

That Love is all there is
Is all we know of Love,
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

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