All Quotes by Emily Dickinson
“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
“Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.”
“Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.”
“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.”
“Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.”
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
“In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery.”
“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.”
“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.”
“I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves.”
“I died for beauty, but was scarce”
“I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.”
“Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.”
“How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!”
“A wounded dear leaps the highest”
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
“Saying nothing... sometimes says the most.”
“Forever is composed of nows.”
“Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”
“I dwell in possibility.”
“One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted —”
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.”
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--”
“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”
“Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.”
“A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.”
“I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.”
“Where thou art, that is home.”
“I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.”
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
“There's a certain slant of light,”
“Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.”
“Hope is the thing with feathers”
“I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.”
“Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.”
“I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.”
“I'm nobody, who are you?”
“We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came.”
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.”
“Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.”
“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.”
“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”
“Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.”
“The brain is wider than the sky.”
“Not with a club, the Heart is broken”
“If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.”
“The bustle in a house”
“It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.”
“A wounded deer leaps the highest.”
“Fortune befriends the bold.”
“Tell the truth, but tell it slant.”
“Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.”
“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.”
“Inebriate of Air — am I —”
“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.”
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
“People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”
“I stepped from Plank to Plank”
“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind—”
“Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!”
“Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.”
“God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.”
“Dying is a wild night and a new road.”
“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”
“To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
“Hope is the thing with feathers”
“I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.”
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
“We do not play on Graves—”
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can 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?”
“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.”
“My friends are my estate.”
“The Soul selects her own Society—”
“God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.”
“Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.”
“Look back on Time, with kindly eyes -”
“We never know how high we are”
“Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye....”
“I died for beauty, but was scarce”
“Her breast is fit for pearls,”
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
“Because I could not stop for Death,”
“Where thou art, that is home.”
“Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.”
“He ate and drank the precious words,”
“I'm nobody! Who are you?”
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
“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.”
“I can wade Grief—”
“The sun just touched the morning;”
“Heart, we will forget him!”
“I felt a Cleaving in my Mind—”
“I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.”
“If I can stop one Heart from breaking,”
“Success is counted sweetest”
“Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.”
“”
“Where thou art, that is home.”
“To see the Summer Sky”
“”
“Sweet hour, blessed hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper goodbye again.”
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”
“I wonder if it hurts to live,”
“How happy is the little stone”
“My life closed twice before its close;”
“They say that “time assuages,”—”
“The bustle in a house”
“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.”
“Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.”
“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis”
“I held a jewel in my fingers”
“I miss you, mourn for you, and walk the streets alone- often at night, beside, I fall asleep in tears, for your dear face, yet not one word comes back to me. If it is finished, tell me, and I will raise the lid to my box of Phantoms, and lay one more love in; but if it lives and beats still, still lives and beats for me, then say so, and I will strike the strings to one more strain of happiness before I die.”
“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”
“I died for beauty, but was scarce”
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.”
“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.”
“There is no Frigate like a Book”
“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?”
“"Faith" is a fine invention In an Emergency.”
“She died--this was the way she died;”
“How dreary — to be — Somebody!”
“The Soul selects her own Society — Present no more —”
“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —And an Orchard, for a Dome—”
“God preaches, a noted Clergyman —I’m going, all along.”
“I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.”
“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is”
“Dreams — are well — but Waking's better,”
“Love — thou art Veiled —”
“I dwell in possibility.”
“I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —Between the Heaves of Storm —”
“Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet”
“We outgrow love, like other thingsLike Costumes Grandsires wore.”
“To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,What must the Midnights — be!”
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.”
“A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,And so the Night became.”
“A little Madness in the SpringIs wholesome even for the King.”
“More than the Grave is closed to me —How similar appears —”
“If Aims impel these Astral OnesAs Dawn forgets them — now”
“Who has not found the Heaven — below —Will fail of it above —”
“We never know we go,—when we are going”
“I took one Draught of Life —The market price, they said.”
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
“Much madness is divinest sense And handled with a chain.”
“Surgeons must be very careful\t Stirs the culprit,—Life!”
“It ’s such a little thing to weep, We men and women die!”
“Who has not found the heaven below His furniture is love.”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn”
“Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Oh, what a livid boon!”
“It might be easier To perish of delight.”
“How happy is the little stone\t In casual simplicity.”
“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”
“The pedigree of honey\t Is aristocracy.”
“Let us strive together to part with time more reluctantly, to watch the pinions of the fleeting moment until they are dim in the distance, and the new-coming moment claims our attention.”
“Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn That darkness is about to pass.”
“In a serener Bright,”
“Love is anterior to life, The exponent of breath.”
“This is the Hour of Lead –”
“I never saw a moor, As if the chart were given.”
“A death-blow is a life-blow to some They died, vitality begun.”
“That such have died enables us For immortality.”
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
“Fame is a fickle food\t Men eat of it and die.”
“I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.”
“The blunder is to estimate,— As this Eternity.”
“There is a solitude of space,\t Finite Infinity.”
“Beauty is not caused. It is.”
“Some Days retired from the rest Or was obliged to die.”
“The sweets of Pillage can be known Is his divinest Grief.”
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“The face we choose to miss, When it has rode away.”
“I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.”
“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”
“They say that “time assuages,”—”
“My friends are my estate.”
“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.”
“Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!”
“I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.”
“Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.”
“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.”