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Emily Dickinson Quotes

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet.

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence. Dickinson was a recluse for the later years of her life.

While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Although Dickinson's acquaintances were most likely aware of her writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Dickinson's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of her work became apparent to the public. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, though both heavily edited the content. A complete, and mostly unaltered, collection of her poetry became available for the first time when scholar Thomas H. Johnson published The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955.

✵ 10. December 1830 – 15. May 1886  •  Other names Emily Dickinsonová, Emily Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Emily Dickinson photo

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Emily Dickinson: 187 quotes142 likes

Famous Emily Dickinson Quotes

“Saying nothing sometimes says the most.”

Emily Dickinson

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson quote: “Forever is composed of nows.”

“Forever is composed of nows.”

Emily Dickinson

“Bring me the sunset in a cup.”

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson Quotes about love

“Love — thou art Veiled —
A few — behold thee —
Smile — and alter — and prattle — and die —
Bliss — were an Oddity — without thee —
Nicknamed by God —
Eternity”

Emily Dickinson Love — thou art high

453: Love — thou art high —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

“Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.”

Emily Dickinson

“That love is all there is, Is all we know of love.”

Emily Dickinson

“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”

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson Quotes about life

“I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.”

Emily Dickinson

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 6
Collected Poems (1993)

Emily Dickinson: Trending 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

“A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson 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

The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward. Quoted in "The Conscious Self in Emily Dickinson's Poetry" by Charles A. Anderson: American Literature, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Nov. 1959), pp. 290-308.

“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!”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Variant: Art is a house that tries to be haunted.
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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

Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death

712: Because I could not stop for Death —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: p>Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.We slowly drove — He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility —
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“The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care”

Emily Dickinson

“A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care —
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew.”

Emily Dickinson

“Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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

Emily Dickinson A little Madness in the Spring

1333: A little Madness in the Spring
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever 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

Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870), letter #342a of The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward, page 474
Source: Selected Letters

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

Emily Dickinson

“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!”

Emily Dickinson

Source: Selected Poems

“The Heart is the Capital of the Mind—
The Mind is a single State—
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent—

One—is the Population—
Numerous enough—
This ecstatic Nation
Seek—it is Yourself.”

Emily Dickinson

“Beauty is not caused. It is.”

Emily Dickinson

“Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane”

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

“Dreams — are well — but Waking's better,
If One wake at Morn —
If One wake at Midnight — better —
Dreaming — of the Dawn”

Emily Dickinson

450: Dreams — are well — but Waking's better
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

“I died for Beauty — but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb,
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room —”

Emily Dickinson

449: I died for Beauty —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: 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, — Themself are One —
We Brethren, are", He said —

“He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty," I replied.
"And I — for Truth, — Themself are One —
We Brethren, are", He said —”

Emily Dickinson

449: I died for Beauty —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: 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, — Themself are One —
We Brethren, are", He said —

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

Emily Dickinson

“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.”

Emily Dickinson

Source: Selected Poems

“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

Source: http://archive.emilydickinson.org/correspondence/norcross/l379.html Letter

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

Emily Dickinson

“I felt it shelter to speak to you.”

Emily Dickinson

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

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

Source: Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

“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

“We outgrow love, like other things
And put it in the Drawer —
Till it an Antique fashion shows —
Like Costumes Grandsires wore.”

Emily Dickinson

887: We outgrow love, like other things
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

“Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Love, p. 167
Collected Poems (1993)
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.”

Emily Dickinson

“A wounded dear leaps the highest”

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 book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of 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

“I must go in, the fog is rising.”

Emily Dickinson

“Judge tenderly of me.”

Emily Dickinson

“I tasted life.”

Emily Dickinson

“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.”

Emily Dickinson

Source: Selected Poems

“Who has not found the Heaven — below —
Will fail of it above”

Emily Dickinson Who has not found the Heaven — below —

1544: Who has not found the Heaven — below —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Source: The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

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