Emily Dickinson Quotes

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — Too?

Love — thou art Veiled — A few — behold thee — Smile — and alter — and prattle — and die — Bliss — were an Oddity — without thee — Nicknamed by God — Eternity —

Read, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!

Read then of faith
That shone above the fagot;
Clear strains of hymn
The river could not drown;
Brave names of men
And celestial women,
Passed out of record
Into renown!

I stepped from Plank to Plank
So slow and cautiously
The Stars about my Head I felt,
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch — This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth, — the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

I find myself still softly searching for my delinquent palaces.

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true — Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate a Throe — The Eyes glaze once — and that is Death — Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last—
I'm going, all along.

IX. The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering; And then, to go to sleep; And then, if it should be The will of its Inquisitor, The liberty to die.

Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.

We all have moments with the dust, but the dew is given.

Faith — is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not — Too slender for the eye
It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
With Arms of Steel at either side — It joins — behind the Veil
To what, could We presume
The Bridge would cease to be
To Our far, vacillating Feet
A first Necessity.

Judge tenderly of me.

The Brain - is wider than the Sky -
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside -

The Brain is deeper than the sea -
For- hold them - Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As Sponges - Buckets - do -

The Brain is just the weight of God -
For - Heft them - Pound for Pound -
And they will differ - if they do -
As Syllable from Sound.