Inspirational Quotes by Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

Inspirational Quotations by Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830–86) was an American lyric poet. She played a leading role in redefining modern verse. She wrote 1775 short lyrics; only seven were published during her life, none with her consent.

Particulars of Dickinson’s life are as perplexing as some of her poems. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickenson was vigorous, witty, and outgoing during her early years. However, in her mid-twenties, she gradually withdrew into an inner world and ultimately refused to leave her home. She lived with her unmarried sister Lavinia in “The Homestead.” Emily read voraciously and exchanged letters with a small circle of friends.

Dickinson’s reclusive life and her inner struggles are reflected in her mystical poems. She referred to herself as “The Queen of Calvary” and wrote in an elliptical language, with great stress on assonance and alliteration than rhyme. Her verse is full of references to storms, shipwrecks, volcanoes, funerals, imprisonments, and other expressions of natural and human ferocity.

Today, Dickenson’s lyrical poetry ranks among the most significant works in American literature. Poems by Emily Dickinson appeared in 1890. A complete scholarly edition of her works first appeared only in 1955. A facsimile of her manuscripts was published in The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (1982.)

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He disposes Doom who hath suffered him.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Poetry, Poets, Art

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Words

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Love

Beauty is not caused, – it is;
Chase it and it ceases,
Chase it not and it abides…
—Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Imagination

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heart

This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Snow

Of Consciousness, her awful Mate. The Soul cannot be rid—as easy the secreting her behind the Eyes of God.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Thought

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Friendship

Dying is a wild night and a new road.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Dying, Nature, Death

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: God

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
—Emily Dickinson

A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Mothers

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Experience

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Memory

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Dogs

We turn, not older with years, but newer every day.
—Emily Dickinson

Heaven is so far of the mind that were the mind dissolved—the site of it by architect could not again be proved.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heaven

Forever is composed of nows.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Live-now, Past and Present

The mere sense of living is joy enough.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Happiness, Blessings

To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Living, Life, Present, Time, The Present

A Letter is a Joy of Earth –
It is denied the Gods.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Letters

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
The Carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Death, Death and Dying

Surgeons must be very careful. When they take the knife, underneath their fine incisions, stirs the culprit—life!
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Doctors, Medicine

Eden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every day without suspecting our abode until we drive away.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Happiness, Blessings, Gratitude, Appreciation

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Reading, Books

Faith—is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Faith

Great Spirit, give to me a heaven not so large as yours but large enough for me.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Heaven

Opinion is a flitting thing
But Truth outlasts the Sun.
—Emily Dickinson
Topics: Truth