Emily Dickinson Quotes

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.

- Emily Dickinson

Handsome, Perfect, Very, Final

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

- Emily Dickinson

Fail, Venture, Infinite, Finite

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

- Emily Dickinson

Book, Away, Like, Prancing

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

Precious, More, Robust, Drank

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

- Emily Dickinson

Love, Sympathy, Unable, Love Is

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

- Emily Dickinson

Death, Immortality, Stopped, Kindly

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

- Emily Dickinson

Love, Death, Breath, Love Is

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

- Emily Dickinson

Love, Life, Immortality, Love Is

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

- Emily Dickinson

Life, Leaves, Else, Little Time

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

- Emily Dickinson

Love, Leaves, Else, Little Time

Nature is our eldest mother; she will do no harm.

- Emily Dickinson

Mother, She, Harm, Eldest

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

- Emily Dickinson

Success, Never, Success Is, Counted

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

Could, Pass, Longest, Forsake

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

- Emily Dickinson

Deer, Wounded, Highest, Leaps

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

- Emily Dickinson

Door, Knowing, Will, Not Knowing

Where thou art, that is home.

- Emily Dickinson

Home, Art, Thou Art, Thou

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 The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.

- Emily Dickinson

Give, Wary, Bush, Charms

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

- Emily Dickinson

Nature, How, Knock, Intrude

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

- Emily Dickinson

Pain, Nerves, Formal, Tombs

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

- Emily Dickinson

Truth, Tell, Slant

I dwell in possibility.

- Emily Dickinson

Inspirational, Dwell, Possibility

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.

- Emily Dickinson

Father, Thought, Buys, Notice

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

Nature, Bee, Will, Clover

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

- Emily Dickinson

Truth, Tell, Rare, Delightful

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

- Emily Dickinson

Luck, Chance, Earned, Toil

We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came.

- Emily Dickinson

Became, Intimate, While, Affection

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

- Emily Dickinson

Oppression, Muscles, Times, Psychic

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

Small, Glass, Like, Portrait

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

- Emily Dickinson

Famous, Living, Give, Give Me

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

- Emily Dickinson

Better, Hammer, Than, Anvil

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

- Emily Dickinson

Think, Always, Everywhere, Recluse

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.

- Emily Dickinson

Broken, Stumble, Sure, Lest

Forever is composed of nows.

- Emily Dickinson

Time, Forever, Composed

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

- Emily Dickinson

Pet, Better, Human Beings, Beings

I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.

- Emily Dickinson

Mother, Never, Whom, Troubled

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

- Emily Dickinson

Love, Saves, Too, Economical

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.

- Emily Dickinson

Know, Need, Parting, Heaven

Saying nothing... sometimes says the most.

- Emily Dickinson

Sometimes, Nothing, Most, Saying

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

- Emily Dickinson

Experience, Always, Ecstatic, Welcome

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

- Emily Dickinson

Road, New, Dying, Wild

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

- Emily Dickinson

Age, Thought, Old, Gradually

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

- Emily Dickinson

Famous, Fickle, Plate, Shifting

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

- Emily Dickinson

Feels, Believes, Does, Thinks

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

- Emily Dickinson

Time, First Time, Whenever, Demon

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

- Emily Dickinson

Life, Joy, Living, Ecstasy

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

- Emily Dickinson

Feel, Off, I Feel, Taken

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!

- Emily Dickinson

Faith, Flight, Sum, Cage

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

Smile, Small, Mine, Necessity

I'm nobody, who are you?

- Emily Dickinson

You, Who, Nobody

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

- Emily Dickinson

Romantic, Stop, Vain, Breaking

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

- Emily Dickinson

Talent, Famous, Celebrity, Punishment

Fortune befriends the bold.

- Emily Dickinson

Success, Fortune, Bold

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

Book, Poetry, Read, Fire

My friends are my estate.

- Emily Dickinson

Friendship, Friends, Estate

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

- Emily Dickinson

Dead, Some, Begins, Said

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

- Emily Dickinson

Hope, Never, Sings, Thing

The brain is wider than the sky.

- Emily Dickinson

Sky, Brain, Than, Wider

Beauty is not caused. It is.

- Emily Dickinson

Beauty, Caused

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.

- Emily Dickinson

Romantic, Dawn, Without, You

That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.

- Emily Dickinson

Life, Never, Will, Makes

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