Emily Dickinson Quotes

I took my power in my hand And went against the world; ’T was not so much as David had, But I was twice as bold. I aimed my pebble, but myself Was all the one that fell. Was it Goliath was too large, Or only I too small?

It tossed and tossed,— A little brig I knew,— O'ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn. It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight. Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit,—Life!

I never hear the word “escape” Without a quicker blood, A sudden expectation, A flying attitude. I never hear of prisons broad By soldiers battered down, But I tug childish at my bars,— Only to fail again!

Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain.

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.

Glee! the great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring, for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls,— Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals! How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, “But the forty? Did they come back no more?” Then a silence suffuses the story, And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply.

I took one Draught of Life —
I'll tell you what I paid —
Precisely an existence —
The market price, they said.

Who has not found the Heaven — below —
Will fail of it above —

If Aims impel these Astral Ones
The ones allowed to know
Know that which makes them as forgot
As Dawn forgets them — now

More than the Grave is closed to me —
The Grave and that Eternity
To which the Grave adheres —
I cling to nowhere till I fall —
The Crash of nothing, yet of all —
How similar appears —

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.

Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone — A Whip so small you could not see it I've known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell. Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried — Singing unto the Stone Of which it died — Shame need not crouch In such an Earth as Ours — Shame — stand erect — The Universe is yours.

Could Hope inspect her Basis
Her Craft were done —
Has a fictitious Charter
Or it has none — Balked in the vastest instance
But to renew —
Felled but by one assassin —
Prosperity —

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind —