Emily Quotes

• 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, Fire, Reading Poetry

  Quoted in Martha Bianchi, Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924)

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  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

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  c.1860 Complete Poems, no.254 (first published 1891).

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• Faith is a fine invention When gentlemen can see, But microscopes are prudent In an emergency.

  Emily Dickinson

  Faith, Knowledge, Science

  c.1860 Complete Poems, no.185 (first published 1891).

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Life, Happiness, Positivity

  "Selected Letters". Edited by Thomas H. Johnson,

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Writing, Enthusiasm, Said

  ?1872 Complete Poems, no.1212 (first published 1894).

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Truth

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Inspirational, Women, Writing

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• Where thou art, that is home.

  Emily Dickinson

  Happiness, Soulmate, Art

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.996, Delphi Classics

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "If I can stop one heart from breaking" l. 1 (ca. 1865)

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• Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

  Emily Bronte

  Love, Romantic, Anniversary

  Wuthering Heights ch. 9 (1847)

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Book, Reading, Land

  "There is no frigate like a book" l. 1 (ca. 1873)

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• Fame is a bee It has a song - It has a sting - Ah, too, it has a wing.

  Emily Dickinson

  Song, Idols, Wings

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.635, Harvard University Press

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Inspirational, Life, Art

  Christopher E. G. Benfey, Emily Dickinson (1986). “Emily Dickinson: lives of a poet”, George Braziller

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• Surgeons must be very careful
  When they take the knife!
  Underneath their fine incisions
  Stirs the Culprit-Life!

  Emily Dickinson

  Life, Science, Doctors

  "Surgeons must be very careful" l. 1 (ca. 1860)

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• One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

  Emily Dickinson

  Inspirational, Life, Halloween

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Poems by Emily Dickinson”, p.145, Library of Alexandria

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Taken, Writing, Poetry

  Quoted in Martha Bianchi, Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924)

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• Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

  Emily Dickinson

  Idols, Cooking, Fickle

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.1939, Delphi Classics

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Love, Life, Arguing

  Emily Dickinson (1998). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.420, Harvard University Press

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Summer, Nature, Tree

  Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1971). “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.334, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

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• 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

  Faith, Sea, Heaven

  Emily Dickinson, Helen Vendler (2010). “Dickinson”, p.343, Harvard University Press

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Kings, Spring, Insanity

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.1613, Delphi Classics

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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, prevail -- Assent -- and you are sane -- Demur -- you're straightway dangerous -- And handled with a Chain --

  Emily Dickinson

  Eye, Insanity, Majority

  "Much madness is divinest sense" l. 1 (ca. 1863)

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Pain, Feelings, Literature

  'After great pain, a formal feeling comes' (1862)

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  We turn not older with years but newer every day.

  Emily Dickinson

  Inspirational, Life, Birthday

  Emily Dickinson, Thomas Herbert Johnson, Theodora Ward (1986). “The Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.499, Harvard University Press

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

  Emily Dickinson

  Believe, Men, Thinking

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