Emily Dickinson was a prolific American poet who is known for her unique and introspective lyrics. Dickinson was a recluse who spent her days writing in her home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her poems are often dark and mysterious, and they explore the innermost thoughts and feelings of the author. Her ‘s work is considered some of the best poetry of the 19th century. Here are some of our favorite Emily Dickinson quotes to get you inspired.
Emily Dickinson is one of the most mysterious and renowned poets of all time. She was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, and died on May 15, 1886, in Amherst. Dickinson is most famous for her unique and puzzling poetry, which was not published until after her death.
Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime. She never published them during her lifetime, but they were posthumously published in 1955.
65 Emily Dickinson Quotes
- “A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.”
2. “The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care”
3. “Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”
4. “We outgrow love like other things and put it in a drawer, till it an antique fashion shows like costumes grandsires wore.”
5. “I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a better shape.”
6. “Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.”
7. “The only secret people keep is immortality.”
8. “The days will have more hours while you are gone away.”
9. “Dying is a wild night and a new road.”
10. “If I wasn’t a perfect woman, I’d bust you in the nose.”
Emily Dickinson Quotes About Life
11. “The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on.”
12. “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
13. “Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.”
14. “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
15. “We turn not older with years but newer every day.”
16. “Love is its own rescue; for we, at our supremest, are but its trembling emblems.”
17. “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.”
18. “Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.”
19. “Who never lost, are unprepared”
20. “The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.”
Emily Dickinson Quotes About Hope and Love
21. “The past is not a package one can lay away.”
22. “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
23. “Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.”
24. “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”
25. “I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.”
26. “I don’t profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”
27. “Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
28. “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
29. “It was not death, for I stood up and all the dead lie down. It was not night, for all the bells. Put out their tongues, for noon.”
30. “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet”
Famous Emily Dickinson Quotes
31. “Truth is such a rare thing it is delightful to tell it,”
32. “We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.”
33. “Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”
34. “Affection is like bread, unnoticed till we starve, and then we dream of it, and sing of it, and paint it, when every urchin in the street has more than he can eat.”
35. “We all have moments with the dust, but the dew is given.”
36. “That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.”
37. “Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.”
38. “Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.”
39. “Hope is the thing with feathers”
40. “There are depths in every Consciousness, from which we cannot rescue ourselves – to which none can go with us.”
Most Meaningful Emily Dickinson Quotes
41. “Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”
42. “To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”
43. “Saying nothing sometimes says the most.”
44. “A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.”
45. “We never know how high we are till we are called to rise. Then if we are true to form our statures touch the skies.”
46. “It might be lonelier without the loneliness. I’m so accustomed to my fate, perhaps the other, peace.”
47. “We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother, but when she became our child, the affection came.”
48. “Some keep the Sabbath going to church, I keep it staying at home, with a bobolink for a chorister, and an orchard for a dome. ”
49. “Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise.”
50. “Those who have not found the heaven below, will fail of it above.”
Thought-Provoking Emily Dickinson Quotes
51. “Anger as soon as fed is dead. ‘Tis starving makes it fat.”
52. “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
53. “How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!”
54. “People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”
55. “My best acquaintances are those with whom I spoke no word.”
56. “I hope your rambles have been sweet, and your reveries spacious”
57. “You cannot fold a flood and put it in a drawer, because the winds would find it out and tell your cedar floor.”
58. “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
59. “I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still.”
60. “I started early, took my dog, and visited the sea. The mermaids in the basement came out to look at me.”
61. “You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself.”
62. “They might not need me, but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight, a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.”
63. “Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with the dandelions, make a sorry figure in a drawing room.”
64. “My life closed twice before its close. It yet remains to see if immortality unveils a third event to me.”
65. “I had no portrait now, but I am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur, and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves.”