The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Quotes

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.”

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

“The Brain is deeper than the sea”

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

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

“To be alive──is Power.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Earth is crammed with Heaven.”

“Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.”

“The Soul selects her own Society.”

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

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

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

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

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

“It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness”

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

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

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