Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet who led a secluded life. Her poems were unpublished during her lifetime. Her poetry is noted for spare, insightful, sometimes mystical nature.

Wisdom & Quotes

• The pedigree of honey

Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time to him
Is aristocracy.

• Beauty crowds me till I die,

Beauty, mercy have on me!
Yet if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee!

• If I can stop one Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain.

• That short, potential stir

That each can make but once,
That bustle so illustrious
'Tis almost consequence,
Is the eclat of death.
- Time and Eternity

• Death is the supple Suitor

That wins at last -
It is a stealthy Wooing
Conducted first
By pallid innuendoes
And dim approach
But brave at last with Bugles.

• Safe Despair it is what raves -

Agony is frugal.
Puts itself severe away
For its own perusal.

• I never talked with God,

Not visited in Heaven -
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
- I Never Saw a Moor

• The Soul selects her own

Society -
Then - shuts the Door -

• Eden is that old-fashioned House

We dwell in every day;
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.

• 'Hope' is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

• A great Hope fell

You heard no noise
The Ruin was within.

• How do most people live without any thoughts? There are many people in the world - you must have noticed them in the street - how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?
• Assent - and you are sane -

Demure - you're straightaway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain - .

• Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

• Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.
• Reverse cannot befall that find

Prosperity
Whose sources are interior.
As soon Adversity
A diamond overtake.

• Because I could not stop for Death -

He kindly stopped for me -
The Carriage held but just Ourselves -
And Immortality.
- Because I could not stop for Death

• The dandelion's pallid tube

Astonishes the grass,
And winter instantly becomes
An infinite alas.

• Fame is a bee,

It has a song -
It has a sting -
Ah, too, it has a wing.

• It will never come again

Is what makes life so sweet.

• Luck is not a chance -

It's toil -
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned.

• Prayer is the little implement

Through which men reach
Where presence - is denied them.

• A word is dead

When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

• A wounded deer - leaps highest.

Yoshida Shoin