The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Quotes

“To be alive──is Power.”

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

“If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I ’d toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity.”

“Now, when I read, I read not, For interrupting tears Obliterate the etchings Too costly for repairs.”

“I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes – I wonder if It weighs like Mine – Or has an Easier size.”

“Water is taught by thirst; Land, by the oceans passed; Transport, by throe; Peace, by its battles told; Love, by memorial mould; Birds, by the snow.”

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

“To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie— True Poems flee—”

“Not with a club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone – A Whip so small you could not see it I’ve known”

“Why joys so scantily disburse, Why Paradise defer, Why floods are served to us in bowls,— I speculate no more.”

“The Soul selects her own Society.”

“Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed.”

“The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.”

“Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true”

“It might be lonelier Without the Loneliness”

“The Brain is deeper than the sea”

“While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear.”

“I am not used to Hope — It might intrude upon — Its sweet parade — blaspheme the place — Ordained to Suffering —”

“I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me”

“In a serener Bright, In a more golden light I see Each little doubt and fear, Each little discord here Removed.”

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

“Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all”

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

“I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors –”

“If you were coming in the fall, I’d brush the summer by”

“The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.”

“Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.”

“Earth is crammed with Heaven.”

“The moon was but a chin of gold A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face Upon the world below.”

″‘Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here.”

“Death is like the insect Menacing the tree, Competent to kill it, But decoyed may be.”

“Then I will not repine Knowing that bird of mine Though flown shall in a distant tree Bright melody for me Return.”

“For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.”

“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.”