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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

“It tossed and tossed,—
A little brig I knew,—
O'ertook by blast,
It spun and spun,
And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped,
As one that drunken stepped;
Its white foot tripped,
Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night
To crew and you;
The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,
To break for you.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 30
Collected Poems (1993)

Heart , Night

“Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature’s curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in,
For this was woman’s son.
“’T was all I had,” she stricken gasped;
Oh, what a livid boon!”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Source: Collected Poems (1993), p. 56. Life.

Law , Hell , Nature

“I took one Draught of Life —
I'll tell you what I paid —
Precisely an existence —
The market price, they said.”

Emily Dickinson I took one Draught of Life

1725: I took one Draught of Life —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Life

“There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.
It hurls its barbed syllables,—
At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother
Gave his breath away.Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever roams the day,
There is its noiseless onset,
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time’s sublimest target
Is a soul “forgot”!”

Emily Dickinson

Love, p. 170
Collected Poems (1993)

Soul , Time , Sun , Victory

“My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —
In Corners — till a Day
The Owner passed — identified —
And carried Me away —

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods —
And now We hunt the Doe —
And every time I speak for Him —
The Mountains straight reply —”

Emily Dickinson My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun

754: My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Life , Mountain , Time

“How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog —
To tell one's name — the livelong June —
To an admiring Bog!”

Emily Dickinson

288: I'm Nobody! Who are you?; In some editions "June" has been altered to "day".
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

“Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,—
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 213
Collected Poems (1993)

Dead , God , Hope

“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;
’T is starving makes it fat.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 38
Collected Poems (1993)

Hate , Revenge , Anger , Dead

“Immortal is an ample word
When what we need is by,
But when it leaves us for a time,
’T is a necessity.

Of heaven above the firmest proof
We fundamental know,
Except for its marauding hand,
It had been heaven below.”

Emily Dickinson

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

Time

“Some Days retired from the rest
In soft distinction lie,
The Day that a companion came—
Or was obliged to die.”

Emily Dickinson

The Single Hound, p. 271
Collected Poems (1993)

Lie

“To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
What must the Midnights — be!”

Emily Dickinson To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,

1095: To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Night

“Nature is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon—
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay—Nature is Heaven.

Nature is what we hear,
The Bobolink, the Sea—
Thunder, the Cricket—
Nay,—Nature is Harmony.

Nature is what we know
But have no art to say,
So impotent our wisdom is
To Her simplicity.”

Emily Dickinson

Source: Collected Poems (1993), p. 268-269. The Single Hound.

Wisdom , Art , Nature , Bee

“New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!”

Emily Dickinson

Nature, p. 108
Collected Poems (1993)

Solitude , Children , Spring , Sleep

“The distance that the dead have gone
Does not at first appear;
Their coming back seems possible
For many an ardent year.

And then, that we have followed them
We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.”

Emily Dickinson

Time and Eternity, p. 229
Collected Poems (1993)

Appearance , Dead

“Glee! the great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls,—
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, “But the forty?
Did they come back no more?”Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller’s eye;
And the children no
further question,
And only the waves reply.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 5
Collected Poems (1993)

Children , Soul , Question , Silence

“Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.
Three times, ’t is said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode

Where hope and he part company,—
For he is grasped of God.
The Maker’s cordial visage,
However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
Like an adversity.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 50
Collected Poems (1993)

God , Hope , Time , Parting