45 Famous Quotes by Emily Dickinson
12/10/1830 - 5/15/1886
Also Known As:
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Dickinson, Emily
Professions:
Information:
About Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.
While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.
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The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
Heart
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (IX), (ed. 1891)
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Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,--you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
Insanity
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (XI (1891 ed.))
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The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
Bees
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (V)
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The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little,--
And that's the skies!
Sky
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (XIX, second series (ed. 1891))
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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.
Earth
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson
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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.
Heaven
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson
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Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.
Hope
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson
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Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these
Poetry
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson
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And so upon this wise I prayed,--
Great Spirit, give to me
A heaven not so large as yours
But large enough for me.
Heaven
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: A Prayer
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God preaches, a noted clergyman,
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along.
Preaching
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (VI, A Service of Song)
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Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
Drinking
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (XX)
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His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
Bees
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems--The Bee (XV)
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If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Into his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Help
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Life
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Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But Microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
Faith
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems--Second Series (XXX)
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There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--
Winter
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: No. 258
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Belshazzar had a letter,--
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondence
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall.
Post
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems (XXV, Belshazzar had a Letter), (ed. 1891)
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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.
Victory
Quotes, by Emily Dickinson , Source: Poems--Success
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