Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time. She is also well known for her unusual life of self-imposed social seclusion. Profoundly inspirational Emily Dickinson quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
If you’re searching for poetry quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes from Mary Oliver, powerful Hermann Hesse quotes and famous Atticus quotes.
Famous Emily Dickinson Quotes
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all. – Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. – Emily Dickinson
Bring me the sunset in a cup. – Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality. – Emily Dickinson
Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy, And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men. – Emily Dickinson
Two Seasons, it is said, exist, The Summer of the Just, And this of Ours, diversified With Prospect, and with Frost, May not our Second with its First So infinite compare That We but recollect the one The other to prefer? – Emily Dickinson
PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to… to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry. – Emily Dickinson
Heavenly Father, take to thee The supreme iniquity Fashioned by thy candid Hand In a moment contraband, Though to trust us seem to us More respectful, We are Dust, We apologize to thee For thine own Duplicity. – Emily Dickinson
Common sense is almost as omniscient as God. – Emily Dickinson
The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on. – Emily Dickinson
Longing, it may be, is the gift no other gift supplies. – Emily Dickinson
There is a pain so utter, it swallows being up; The covers the abyss with a trance So memory can step around, across, upon it. – Emily Dickinson
We turn not older with years but newer every day. – Emily Dickinson
I would paint a portrait which would bring the tears, had I canvas for it, and the scene should be solitude, and the figures solitude and the lights and shades, each a solitude. – Emily Dickinson
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture. – Emily Dickinson
We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg. – Emily Dickinson
Nature is what we know, Yet have not art to say, So impotent our wisdom is To her simplicity. – Emily Dickinson
Not to discover weakness is The Artifice of strength. – Emily Dickinson
It is finished, is never said of us – Emily Dickinson
Sunrise: day’s great progenitor. – Emily Dickinson
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought. – Emily Dickinson
Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality. – Emily Dickinson
Tis not that dieing hurts us so, tis living, hurts us more. – Emily Dickinson
A shady friend for torrid days Is easier to find Than one of higher temperature For frigid hour of mind. – Emily Dickinson
As Summer into Autumn slips And yet we sooner say The Summer than the Autumn, lest We turn the sun away,And almost count it an Affront The presence to concede Of one however lovely, not The one that we have loved, So we evade the charge of Years On one attempting shy The Circumvention of the Shaft Of Life’s Declivity. – Emily Dickinson
His Labor is a Chant, His Idleness, a Tune, Oh, for a Bee’s experience Of Clovers, and of Noon! – Emily Dickinson
A dim capacity for wings demeans the dress I wear. – Emily Dickinson
You remember my ideal cat has always a huge rat in its mouth, just going out of sight, though going out of sight in itself has a peculiar pleasure. – Emily Dickinson
Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane – Emily Dickinson
Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling Indolent Housewife in Daisies lain! – Emily Dickinson
You’ll find it, when you try to die, The Easier to let go, For recollecting such as went, You could not spare, you know. – Emily Dickinson
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. – Emily Dickinson
Each that we lose takes a part of us; A crescent still abides, Which like the moon, some turbid night,Is summoned by the tides. – Emily Dickinson
For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy. – Emily Dickinson
I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine. – Emily Dickinson
We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble. – Emily Dickinson
If I shouldn’t be aliveWhen the Robins come,Give the one in Red Cravat, A Memorial crumb. – Emily Dickinson
I tasted, careless, then, I did not know the Wine Came once a World, Did you? Oh, had you told me so, This Thirst would blister, easier, now – Emily Dickinson
God, keep me from what they call ‘households,’ – Emily Dickinson
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. – Emily Dickinson
I tasted life. – Emily Dickinson
Inspirational Emily Dickinson Quotes
The power to console is not within corporeal reach, though its attempt is precious. – Emily Dickinson
I confess that I love him, I rejoice that I love him, I thank the maker of Heaven and Earth that gave him to me. The exultation floods me. – Emily Dickinson
To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie— True Poems flee— – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. – Emily Dickinson
But a Book is only the Heart’s Portrait, every Page a Pulse. – Emily Dickinson
A wounded deer leaps highest, I’ve heard the hunter tell; ‘Tis but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs,, A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings Mirth is mail of anguish, In which its cautious arm Lest anybody spy the blood And, you’re hurt exclaim. – Emily Dickinson
Our little kinsmen after rain In plenty may be seen, a pink and pulpy multitude The tepid ground upon; A needless life if seemed to me Until a little bird As to a hospitality Advanced and breakfasted. – Emily Dickinson
I died for Beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room – Emily Dickinson
The hearts that never lean must fall. – Emily Dickinson
How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! – Emily Dickinson
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil. – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
The last of Summer is Delight, Deterred by Retrospect. ‘Tis Ecstasy’s revealed Review, Enchantment’s Syndicate. To meet it, nameless as it is, Without celestial Mail, Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil. – Emily Dickinson
Love is like life, merely longer. – Emily Dickinson
Fame is a bee It has a song, It has a sting, Ah, too, it has a wing. – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! – Emily Dickinson
Nothing more do I ask than to share with you the ecstasy and sacrament of my life. – Emily Dickinson
The career of flowers differs from ours only inaudibleness. – Emily Dickinson
One step at a time is all it takes to get you there. – Emily Dickinson
Life is so rotatory that the wilderness falls to each, sometime. – Emily Dickinson
Remorse is memory awake. – Emily Dickinson
A color stands abroad on solitary hills that silence cannot overtake, but human nature feels. – Emily Dickinson
They say that Time assuages, Time never did assuage, An actual suffering strengthens As Sinews do, with age, Time is a Test of Trouble, But not a Remedy, If such it prove, it prove too There was no Malady – Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense To a discerning Eye Much Sense the starkest Madness ‘Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail Assent and you are sane Demur you’re straightway dangerous And handled with a Chain – Emily Dickinson
How odd that girl’s life looks Behind this soft eclipse! I think that earth seems so To those in heaven now. This being comfort, then That other kind was pain; But why compare? I’m wife! stop there! – Emily Dickinson
My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them. They tell me those who were poor early have different views of gold. I don’t know how that is. God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him. – Emily Dickinson
I think Heaven will not be as good as earth, unless it bring with it that sweet power to remember, which is the staple of Heaven here. – Emily Dickinson
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 a chart were given. – Emily Dickinson
That love is all there is, Is all we know of love. – Emily Dickinson
I hope your rambles have been sweet, and your reveries spacious – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
I held a jewel in my fingers And went to sleep. The day was warm, and winds were prosy; I said: ‘T will keep. I woke and chid my honest fingers,— The gem was gone; And now an amethyst remembrance Is all I own. – Emily Dickinson
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
A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is To meet an antique book In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old. – Emily Dickinson
I do not know the man so bold He dare in lonely Place That awful stranger Consciousness Deliberately face. – Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson Quotes on Hope, Friendship, Love and Family
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath. – Emily Dickinson
The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more. – Emily Dickinson
A little madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown, Who ponders this tremendous scene This whole experiment in green, As if it were his own! – Emily Dickinson
Where thou art, that is home. – Emily Dickinson
Wonder is not precisely knowing. – Emily Dickinson
Longing is like a seed that wrestles in the ground – Emily Dickinson
The Truth never flaunted a sign. – Emily Dickinson
To multiply the harbors does not reduce the sea. – Emily Dickinson
You don’t have to be a house to be haunted. – Emily Dickinson
I am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves. – Emily Dickinson
We do not play on Graves— Because there isn’t Room— Besides—it isn’t even—it slants And People come— And put a Flower on it— And hang their faces so— We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop— And crush our pretty play— And so we move as far As Enemies—away— Just looking round to see how far It is—Occasionally— – Emily Dickinson
Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed. – Emily Dickinson
We never know how high we are till we are called to rise. Then if we are true to form our statures touch the skies. – Emily Dickinson
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true – Emily Dickinson
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. – Emily Dickinson
One need not be a chamber to be haunted. – Emily Dickinson
Nature is what we see, the hill, the afternoon, squirrel, eclipse, the bumblebee. Nay, nature is heaven. Nature is what we hear… – Emily Dickinson
In the name of the bee And of the butterfly And of the breeze, amen! – Emily Dickinson
The truth I do not dare to know I muffle with a jest. – Emily Dickinson
Portrait The world spreads out on either side no farther than the heart is wide. – Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides – Emily Dickinson
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. – Emily Dickinson
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes. – Emily Dickinson
I dwell in possibilities. – Emily Dickinson
The spreading wide my narrow Hands / To gather Paradise. – Emily Dickinson
Twin loaves of bread have just been born into the world under my auspices. Fine children, the image of their mother. And here, my dear friend, is the glory. – Emily Dickinson
Answer July, Where is the Bee, Where is the Blush, Where is the Hay? Ah, said July, Where is the Seed, Where is the Bud, Where is the May, Answer Thee, Me, – Emily Dickinson
The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination. – Emily Dickinson
It is true that the unknown is the largest need of the intellect, though for it, no one thinks to thank God. – Emily Dickinson
Judge tenderly of me. – Emily Dickinson
Saying nothing… sometimes says the most. – Emily Dickinson
‘Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with Daisies lie, That Commerce will continue, And Trades as briskly fly. – Emily Dickinson
The Past is such a curious Creature To look her in the Face A Transport may receipt us Or a Disgrace. – Emily Dickinson
Publication is the auction of the mind. – Emily Dickinson
All things do go a, courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single But thee in His world so fair. – Emily Dickinson
I am going to learn to make bread tomorrow. So, if you may imagine me with my sleeves rolled up, mixing flour, milk, saleratus, etc., with a deal of grace. I advise you if you don’t know how to make the staff of life to learn with dispatch. – Emily Dickinson
I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still… I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose. – Emily Dickinson
Banish Air from AirDivide Light if you dare – Emily Dickinson
Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself. – Emily Dickinson
The Loneliness One dare not sound And would as soon surmise AS in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny The Horror not to be surveyed But skirted in the Dark With Consciousness suspended And Being under Lock I fear me this is Loneliness The Maker of the soul Its Caverns and its Corridors Illuminate or seal – Emily Dickinson
What fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure The accent of a coming Foot, The opening of a Door. – Emily Dickinson
Nothing is the force that renovates the World. – Emily Dickinson
An ear can break a human heart As quickly as a spear, We wish the ear had not a heart So dangerously near. – Emily Dickinson
Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to, day Can tell the definition So clear of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear. – Emily Dickinson
People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. – Emily Dickinson
A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled. – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
I started early, took my dog, and visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me – Emily Dickinson
My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, so huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell. – Emily Dickinson
Death is a supple suitor, that wins at last. It is a stealthy wooing; conducted first by pallid innuendos and dim approach, but brave at last with bugles. – Emily Dickinson
I had no monarch in my life and cannot rule myself; and when I try to organize, my little force explodes and leaves me bare and charred. – Emily Dickinson
Further in Summer than the Birds Pathetic from the Grass A minor Nation celebrates Its unobtrusive Mass. No Ordinance be seen So gradual the Grace A pensive Custom it becomes Enlarging Loneliness. Antiquest felt at Noon When August burning low Arise this spectral Canticle Repose to typify Remit as yet no Grace No Furrow on the Glow Yet a Druidic Difference Enhances Nature now. – Emily Dickinson
Faith is the pierless bridge supporting what We see unto the scene that we do not. – Emily Dickinson
Forever is composed of nows. – Emily Dickinson
That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. – Emily Dickinson
To travel far, there is no better ship than a book. – Emily Dickinson
The only Commandment I ever obeyed — ‘Consider the Lilies. – Emily Dickinson
Nature, like us is sometimes caught without her diadem. – Emily Dickinson
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. – Emily Dickinson
To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. – Emily Dickinson
Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality. – Emily Dickinson
Good times are always mutual; that is what makes good times. – Emily Dickinson
The Things that never can come back, are several, Childhood, some forms of Hope, the Dead. – Emily Dickinson
Love is everything. And that’s all we know about it. – Emily Dickinson
It is easy to work when the soul is at play. – Emily Dickinson
Opinion is a fitting thing, but truth outlasts the sun, if then we cannot own them both, possess the oldest one. – Emily Dickinson
Suspense, is Hostiler than Death, Death, tho soever Broad, Is just Death, and cannot increase, Suspense, does not conclude, . – Emily Dickinson
If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves. You can gain more control over your life by paying closer attention to the little things. – Emily Dickinson
Till the first friend dies, we think our ecstasy impersonal, but then discover that he was the cup from which we drank it, itself as yet unknown. – Emily Dickinson
I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. – Emily Dickinson
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. – Emily Dickinson
The Spirit lurks within the Flesh Like Tides within the Sea That make the Water live, estranged What would the Either be? – Emily Dickinson
Open your life wide, and take me in forever. I will never be tired, I will never be noisy when you want to be still…nobody else will see me, but you, but that is enough, I shall not want any more. – Emily Dickinson
Renunciation, is a piercing Virtue, The letting go A Presence, for an Expectation, . – Emily Dickinson
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind, As if my Brain had split, I tried to match it, Seam by Seam, But could not make it fit. – Emily Dickinson
We never know we go when we are going, We jest and shut the Door, Fate, following, behind us bolts it, And we accost no more, . – Emily Dickinson
The things of which we want the proof are those we know the best. – Emily Dickinson
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. – Emily Dickinson
I can wade Grief, Whole Pools of it, I’m used to that, But the least push of Joy Breaks up my feet, And I tip, drunken, Let no Pebble, smile, ‘Twas the New Liquor, That was all! – Emily Dickinson
How softly summer shuts, without the creaking of a door. – Emily Dickinson
The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul BOOKS. – Emily Dickinson
Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth – Emily Dickinson
The Heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care – Emily Dickinson
To lose what we have never owned might seem an eccentric bereavement, but Presumption has its own affliction as well as claim. – Emily Dickinson
We trust in plumed procession For such the angels go Rank after rank, with even feet/And uniforms of snow. – Emily Dickinson
The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind. – Emily Dickinson
Enough is so vast a sweetness I suppose it never occurs. – Emily Dickinson
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
Expectation is contentment, Gain satiety. – Emily Dickinson
I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality. – Emily Dickinson
This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me – Emily Dickinson
Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. – Emily Dickinson
I like a look of Agony, because I know it’s true, men do not sham Convulsion, nor simulate, a Throe – Emily Dickinson
Pain, has an Element of Blank It cannot recollect When it begun, or if there were a time when it was not, It has no Future, but itself, Its Infinite contain Its Past, enlightened to perceive New Periods, of Pain. – Emily Dickinson
To be alive is Power. – Emily Dickinson
I’ll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, That must have been the sun! – Emily Dickinson
A light exists in Spring Not present in the year at any other period When March is scarcely here. – Emily Dickinson
A Word that Breathes Distinctly Has not the Power to Die – Emily Dickinson
