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Emily Dickinson Quotes
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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
Emily Dickinson: 187   quotes 136   likes

Emily Dickinson Quotes

“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.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Fear

“Till I loved I never liked enough.”

Emily Dickinson

Variant: Till I loved I never lived.

Love

“Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate,
Whose table once a Guest, but not
The second time, is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect,
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn;
Men eat of it and die.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 257
Collected Poems (1993)

Men , Food , Time , Past

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

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Pleasure , Books , Thinking

“Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.”

Emily Dickinson

67: Success is counted sweetest
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: p>Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires a sorest need.Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of VictoryAs he defeated — dying —
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!</p

Success

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

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Lie , Books , Summer

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

1129: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Variant: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Context: p>Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —</p

Truth

“I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.”

Emily Dickinson
Hurtful , Hurt

“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.”

Emily Dickinson
Fear

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
I keep it, staying at Home—
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome”

Emily Dickinson Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

324: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Home

“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 the chart were given.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 188
Collected Poems (1993)

God , Sea

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

Emily Dickinson

Source: Selected Poems

Personality

“I HIDE myself within my flower
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness…”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Angels , Feeling , Flowers , Loneliness

“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.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 234
Collected Poems (1993)

God , Fear , Fight

“A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 204
Collected Poems (1993)

Life , Death

“I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air —
Between the Heaves of Storm”

Emily Dickinson I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

465: I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Flying

“It makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.

Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates his jargoning
For passing Calvary.

Auto-da-fé and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.”

Emily Dickinson

Nature, p. 120
Collected Poems (1993)

Flowers , Bee , Season

“I reason, earth is short,
And anguish absolute.
And many hurt;
But what of that?

I reason, we could die:
The best vitality
Cannot excel decay;
But what of that?

I reason that in heaven
Somehow, it will be even,
Some new equation given;
But what of that?”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 192
Collected Poems (1993)

Hurt

“How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And does n’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

Nature, p. 97
Collected Poems (1993)

Fear , Universe , Sun , Happiness

“God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last—
I’m going, all along.”

Emily Dickinson Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

324: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

God

“No rack can torture me,
My soul 's at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one

You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.

The eagle of his nest
No easier divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou,

Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So's liberty.”

Emily Dickinson

Source: Collected Poems (1993), Time and Eternity, p. 198

Soul

“So proud she was to die
It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown
To her desire seemed.

So satisfied to go
Where none of us should be,
Immediately, that anguish stooped
Almost to jealousy.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 240
Collected Poems (1993)

Jealousy

“I never hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars,—
Only to fail again!”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 22
Collected Poems (1993)

Flying

“There is a solitude of space,
A solitude of sea,
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be,
Compared with that profounder site,
That polar privacy,
A Soul admitted to Itself:
Finite Infinity.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 265
Collected Poems (1993)

Death , Soul , Solitude , Sea

“Could Hope inspect her Basis
Her Craft were done —
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none —

Balked in the vastest instance
But to renew —
Felled but by one assassin —
Prosperity —”

Emily Dickinson Could Hope inspect her Basis

1283: Could Hope inspect her Basis
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Hope

“The face we choose to miss,
Be it but for a day—
As absent as a hundred years
When it has rode away.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 312
Collected Poems (1993)

“Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit,—Life!”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 25
Collected Poems (1993)

Life

“I took my power in my hand
And went against the world;
’T was not so much as David had,
But I was twice as bold.

I aimed my pebble, but myself
Was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath was too large,
Or only I too small?”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 33
Collected Poems (1993)

World

“The sweets of Pillage can be known
To no one but the Thief,
Compassion for Integrity
Is his divinest Grief.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 299
Collected Poems (1993)

“More than the Grave is closed to me —
The Grave and that Eternity
To which the Grave adheres —
I cling to nowhere till I fall —
The Crash of nothing, yet of all —
How similar appears”

Emily Dickinson More than the Grave is closed to me —

1503: More than the Grave is closed to me —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Appearance

“The blunder is to estimate,—
“Eternity is Then,”
We say, as of a station.
Meanwhile he is so near,
He joins me in my ramble,
Divides abode with me,
No friend have I that so persists
As this Eternity.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 261
Collected Poems (1993)

“A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became.”

Emily Dickinson The Crickets sang

1104: The Crickets sang
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Wisdom , Peace , Home , Night

“This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told —
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly — of Me”

Emily Dickinson This is my letter to the World

441: This is my letter to the World
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Love , World , Nature

“If Aims impel these Astral Ones
The ones allowed to know
Know that which makes them as forgot
As Dawn forgets them — now”

Emily Dickinson The Moon upon her fluent Route

1528: The Moon upon her fluent Route
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Forgetting

“Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
Nor with a Stone —
A Whip so small you could not see it
I've known

To lash the Magic Creature
Till it fell,
Yet that Whip's Name
Too noble then to tell.

Magnanimous as Bird
By Boy descried —
Singing unto the Stone
Of which it died —

Shame need not crouch
In such an Earth as Ours —
Shame — stand erect —
The Universe is yours.”

Emily Dickinson

1304: Not with a Club, the Heart is broken
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Boy , Bird , Universe , Singing

“Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity”

Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death

712: Because I could not stop for Death —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Feeling , Horse

“It ’s such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades the size of these
We men and women die!”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 50
Collected Poems (1993)

Women , Men

“Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled—he did not fall—
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes—
He neutralized them all.

She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledged him a man.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 60
Collected Poems (1993)

Fate

“It might be easier
To fail with land in sight,
Than gain my blue peninsula
To perish of delight.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 69
Collected Poems (1993)

“"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 — ”

Emily Dickinson Hope is a subtle Glutton

254: "Hope" is the thing with feathers —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Hope , Soul , Bird , Singing

“The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.”

Emily Dickinson

Nature, p. 110
Collected Poems (1993)

Bee , Time

“God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts. Yet I am not afraid, for I try to be right and good; and He knows every one of my struggles.”

Emily Dickinson

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=EsovAQAAMAAJ&q=%22God+is+sitting+here+looking+into+my+very+soul+to+see+if+I+think+right+thoughts+Yet+I+am+not+afraid+for+I+try+to+be+right+and%22&pg=PA39#v=onepage to Abiah Root http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/abiah_root (29 January 1850)

God , Soul , Thinking

“Who has not found the heaven below
Will fail of it above.
God’s residence is next to mine,
His furniture is love.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 54
Collected Poems (1993)

Love , God

“The grass so little has to do,—
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine,-
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away,—
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were a hay!”

Emily Dickinson

Nature, p. 112
Collected Poems (1993)

Dreams , Sleep , Grass , Bee

“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.”

Emily Dickinson

Nature, p. 118
Collected Poems (1993)

Grass , Sun

“A Grave — is a restricted Breadth —
Yet ampler than the Sun —
And all the Seas He populates
And lands he looks upon

To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend —
Circumference without Relief —
Or Estimate — or End”

Emily Dickinson

943: A Coffin — is a small Domain,
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Sun , Sea

“That such have died enables us
The tranquiller to die;
That such have lived, certificate
For immortality.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 228
Collected Poems (1993)