Emily Dickinson Quotes

Emily Dickinson (1830-86), American poet known for her reclusive lifestyle, author of "I'm nobody! Who are you?"

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul.

And sings the tune

Without the words,

and never stops at all. "

"We turn not older with years, but newer every day. "

"Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate."

"My friends are my estate."

"Anger as soon as fed is dead-"

"Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed. "

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

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

"It is better to be the hammer than the anvil."

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."

"The possible's slow fuse is lit, by the Imagination."

"Fortune befriends the bold."

"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."

"Forever is composed of nows."

"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."

"Beauty is not caused. It is."

"For Love is Immortality."

"There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry."

"To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter, I know, who charge within the bosom, the Cavalry of Woe."

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

"They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."

"I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality."

"A wounded deer leaps the highest."

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

"Tell the truth, but tell it slant."

"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."

"Finite to fail, but infinite to venture."

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

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all."

"To whom the mornings are like nights, What must the midnights be!"

"How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!"

"Remember if you marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year: and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all."

"Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought."

"How dreary - to be - somebody! How public - like a frog - to tell your name - the livelong June - to an admiring bog!"

"Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned."

"Where thou art, that is home."

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs."

"People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."

"Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it."

"Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb - or Dome of Worm - or Porch of Gnome - or some Elf's Catacomb?"

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

"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."

"Luck is not chance, it is toil. Fortune is expensive smile is earned."

"'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory!"

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

"Surgeons must be very careful. When they take the knife!, underneath their fine incisions, stirs the Culprit - Life!"

"Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat."

"he presence of your absence is everywhere."

"His Labor is a Chant - his Idleness - a Tune - oh, for a Bee's experience of Clovers, and of Noon!"

"I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name."

"I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven."

"Without suspecting our abode until we drive away."

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

"Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes."

"Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent."

"Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed."

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