Emily Dickinson Quotes

One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

We turn not older with years but newer every day.

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

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

The lovely flowers
embarrass me.
They make me regret
I am not a bee...

Till I loved I never lived.

I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.

I felt it shelter to speak to you.

A great hope fell
You heard no noise
The ruin was within.

Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.

Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

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.

Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured.

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.

"I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes;
I wonder if It weighs like Mine,
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the Date of Mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if They have to try,
And whether, could They choose between,
It would not be, to die.

I note that Some — gone patient long — At length, renew their smile.
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil.

I wonder if when Years have piled,
Some Thousands — on the Harm
Of early hurt — if such a lapse
Could give them any Balm;

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger Pain
By Contrast with the Love.

The Grieved are many,
I am told;
The reason deeper lies, — Death is but one
and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There's Grief of Want
and Grief of Cold, — A sort they call "Despair";
There's Banishment from native Eyes,
In sight of Native Air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the Cross,
And how they're mostly worn,
Still fascinated to presume
That Some are like My Own."