“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”

— Emily Dickinson

Quoted on the web sans source. Not in the complete Poems. A 2006 self-help book attributes it verbatim to Dave Sim (see below) sans source. A 2009 reprint of Poems: Second Series mentions it in the introduction sans source (thus probably taking it from the unsourced web quote). No earlier attributions found.
Compare to a quote sourced to Dave Sim: "Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon." (Cerebus #65, 1984)
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Emily Dickinson187

American poet 1830–1886

Related quotes

“Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon.”

Dave Sim (1956) Canadian cartoonist, creator of Cerebus

Cover and title of Cerebus #65, August 1984, collected in Church & State I, p. 7 and 273 Usually quoted with "Anything" unspaced (as in the title p. 7), sometimes quoted spaced (as in the art p. 273, as "Any thing done for the first time unleashes a demon.") because the cover art http://www.comics.org/issue/175338/ piles "Any" and "thing" (though they are joined, the leg of the "y" being also the bar of the "t"). Compare to a quote misattributed to Emily Dickinson: "Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon." (origin and date unknown, also attributed to Dave Sim) Church & State volume I (1987)

“Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon. (Cover and title of Cerebus #65, August 1984, collected in Church & State I, p. 7 and 273)”

Dave Sim (1956) Canadian cartoonist, creator of Cerebus

Usually quoted with "Anything" unspaced (as in the title p. 7), sometimes quoted spaced (as in the art p. 273, as "Any thing done for the first time unleashes a demon.") because the cover art http://www.comics.org/issue/175338/ piles "Any" and "thing" (though they are joined, the leg of the "y" being also the bar of the "t"). Compare to a quote misattributed to Emily Dickinson: "Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon." (origin and date unknown, also attributed to Dave Sim) Church & State volume I (1987)

“Release the demon under promise that I'd be repaid handsomely, my enemies destroyed? Hmm, where had I seen this before? Oh, right. Every demon horror movie ever made. And the horror part started right after the releasing part.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

“Whenever I hear of culture … I release the safety catch of my Browning!”

Hanns Johst (1890–1978) German general

Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!
Schlageter

“It's in this book I was reading. Apparently, there's a little red demon dwarf that haunts the city, and before every major bad thing that's happened, it's appeared to somebody. Last time, he appeared in a Cadillac.”

Meg White (1974) American musician

On what's wrong with Detroit Andrew Perry (13 November 2004). "What's eating Jack?" http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/nov/14/popandrock.thewhitestripes, TheGuardian.com (accessed October 24, 2014)

“The appropriate time for the ultimate release of the deposits will have arrived at the onset of the first post-war slump.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 7 : The Release of Deferred Pay and a Capital Levy

“Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things”

Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American aviation pioneer and author

Poetry written around the time of the breaking of her "tenuous engagement" to Samuel Chapman (c. 1928), published in Amelia, My Courageous Sister : Biography of Amelia Earhart (1987) by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, p. 74; also in Amelia : A Life of the Aviation Legend (1999) by Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, p. 38
Context: Courage is the price that
Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.