Emily Dickinson Quotes

390 Sourced Quotes

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
To be alive is power; existence in itself; without a further function; omnipotence.

Emily Dickinson
The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small-
Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all.

Emily Dickinson
Fire exists the first in light, And then consolidates — Only the chemist can disclose Into what carbonates.

Emily Dickinson
Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb - or Dome of Worm - or Porch of Gnome - or some Elf's Catacomb?

Emily Dickinson
Forever is composed of Nows— 'Tis not a different time— Except for Infiniteness— And Latitude of Home

Emily Dickinson
September's Baccalaureate A combination is Of Crickets - Crows - and Retrospects And a dissembling Breeze That hints without assuming - An Innuendo sear That makes the Heart put up its Fun And turn Philosopher.

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
Does not Eternity appear dreadful to you. I often get to thinking of it and it seems so dark to me that I almost wish there was no Eternity. To think that we must forever live and never cease to be. It seems as if Death would be a relief to so endless a state of existence.

Emily Dickinson
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.

Emily Dickinson
By every broom and Bridget Throughout a Christian land. Neglected son of genius, I take thee by the hand.

Emily Dickinson
Nods from the Gilded pointers -
Nods from the Seconds slim -
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life -
And Him -

Emily Dickinson
What once was "Heaven" is "Zenith" now — Where I proposed to go When Time's brief masquerade was done Is mapped, and charted too.

Emily Dickinson
No Life can pompless pass away -
The lowliest career
To the same Pageant wends its way
As that exalted here -

Emily Dickinson
You are out of the way of temptation and out of the way of the tempter - I didn't mean to make you wicked - but I was - and am - and shall be - and I was with you so much that I couldn't help contaminate.

Emily Dickinson
Of Consciousness, her awful Mate. The Soul cannot be rid - as easy the secreting her behind the Eyes of God.

Emily Dickinson
You left me boundaries of pain Capacious as the sea, Between eternity and time, Your consciousness and me.

Emily Dickinson
To possess is past the instant; we achieve the joy, immortality contented, were anomaly.

Emily Dickinson
Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect Where it began, or if there were A day when it was not.

Emily Dickinson
Had we less to say to those we love, perhaps we should say it oftener.

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
His mind of man, a secret makes I meet him with a start he carries a circumference in which I have no part.

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
It knew no Medicine — It was not Sickness — then — Nor any need of Surgery — And therefore — 'twas not Pain —

Emily Dickinson
To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter, I know, who charge within the bosom, the Cavalry of Woe.

Emily Dickinson
The world allured me & in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me & told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger & was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return & ever since my heart has been growing harder.

Emily Dickinson
There is a Zone whose even Years
No Solstice interrupt -
Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
Whose perfect Seasons wait -
Whose Summer set in Summer, till
The Centuries of June
And Centuries of August cease
And Consciousness - is Noon.

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.

Emily Dickinson
Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,

But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.

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