Emily Dickinson Quotes

Hope is a thing with feathers

Faith—is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not— Too slender for the eye It bears the Soul as bold As it were rocked in Steel With Arms of Steel at either side— It joins—behind the Veil To what, could We presume The Bridge would cease to be To Our far, vacillating Feet A first Necessity.

To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie— True Poems flee—

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.

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.

The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity

A Word that Breathes Distinctly Has not the Power to Die

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

Pain has an element of blank

I cannot help esteem The 'Bird within the Hand' Superior to the one The 'Bush' may yield me Or may not Too late to choose again

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.

Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze.

Beauty is just a light switch away...'click!' Beauty is not caused. It is.

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

Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.

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

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

I am one of the lingering bad ones, and so do I slink away, and pause, and ponder, and ponder, and pause, and do work without knowing why - not surely for this brief world, and more sure it is not for heaven - and I ask what this message of Christ means.

How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.

I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity Nor had I time to love: but since Some industry must be, The little toil of love, I thought, Was large enough for me.

I work to drive the awe away, yet awe impels the work.

God's little Blond Blessing we have long deemed you, and hope his so-called Will will not compel him to revoke you.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labour, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.

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.

I had been hungry all the years- My noon had come, to dine- I, trembling, drew the table near And touched the curious wine. 'Twas this on tables I had seen When turning, hungry, lone, I looked in windows, for the wealth I could not hope to own. I did not know the ample bread, 'Twas so unlike the crumb The birds and I had often shared In Nature's diningroom. The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new,-- Myself felt ill and odd, As berry of a mountain bush Transplanted to the road. Nor was I hungry; so I found That hunger was a way Of persons outside windows, The entering takes away.

The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye.

I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me

I dwell in possibilities... a fairer house than prose.

A soft Sea washed around the House A Sea of Summer Air And rose and fell the magic Planks That sailed without a care — For Captain was the Butterfly For Helmsman was the Bee And an entire universe For the delighted crew.

There is always one thing to be grateful for - that one is one's self and not somebody else.

I SEE thee better in the dark, I do not need a light. The love of thee a prism be Excelling violet. I see thee better for the years That hunch themselves between, The miner’s lamp sufficient be To nullify the mine. And in the grave I see thee best— Its little panels be A-glow, all ruddy with the light I held so high for thee! What need of day to those whose dark Hath so surpassing sun, It seem it be continually At the meridian?

I am nobody! Who are you? Are you a nobody, too?

To see her is a picture- To hear her is a tune- To know her an Intemperance As innocent as June- To know her not-Affliction- To own her for a Friend A warmth as near as if the the Sun Were shining in your Hand.

Knew I how to pray, to intercede for your [broken] Foot were intuitive - but I am but a Pagan.

They say that 'home is where the heart is.' I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.

When we think of his lone effort to live and its bleak reward, the mind turns to the myth "for His mercy endureth forever," with confiding revulsion.

Memory is a strange Bell—Jubilee, and Knell.

The Things that never can come back, are several - Childhood - some forms of Hope - the Dead.

The Truth never flaunted a sign.

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself.

Love is everything. And that's all we know about it.

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.

When a Lover is a Beggar Abject is his Knee. When a Lover is an Owner Different is he.

Nothing more do I ask than to share with you the ecstasy and sacrament of my life.

Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play -- In accidental power -- The blonde Assassin passes on -- The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God.

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is, to meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege I think.

The Heart is the Capital of the Mind— The Mind is a single State— The Heart and the Mind together make A single Continent— One—is the Population— Numerous enough— This ecstatic Nation Seek—it is Yourself.