Emily Dickinson
Revolutionary American poet of interiority
Most quoted
"The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune – Because I grow – where Robins do – But, were I Cuckoo born – I’d swear by him – The ode familiar – rules the Noon – The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom – Because, we’re Orchard sprung – But, were I Britain born, I’d Daisies spurn – None but the Nut – October fit – Because, through dropping it, The Seasons flit – I’m taught – Without the Snow’s Tableau Winter, were lie – to me – Because I had not seen it go – But, this – makes not the Robin poor – Nor, of the Nut, deprive the Jay – Because the seasons flit away –"
— from Poem 347, 1862
"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?"
— from Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson
"I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs – The name They dropped upon my face With water, in the country church Is finished using, now, And They can put it with my Dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools, I’ve finished threading – too –"
— from Poem 508, 1862
All quotes by Emily Dickinson (267)
Crisis is a Hair – A Hair upon the Head of Noon –
The Missing All – prevented Me From missing minor Things.
The Sun went down – no Sweet Repose Permitting Him to stay –
Nature – the Gentlest Mother is, Impatient of no Child –
The thought of love is a promise of love.
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 –
The Heaven hath a Hell, its own, its own, its own.
The only way to know if you're alive is to feel.
The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met, Is the one that sings in the Rain –
The power of a Soul has not been tried – Ah, what a moment for a Soul to try!
My Business is Circumference.
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?
I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none – and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground – because I am afraid –
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 –
Sorrow is not an accident, but the design of a Master.
My Life has been too full of you, to stop for what you call 'the World.'
I have no Father nor Mother nor Sister nor Brother – but a friend – and that is all.
The only Ghost I ever saw Was the Ghost of Me.
A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.
The only way to be immortal is to die.
Contemporaries of Emily Dickinson
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Emily Dickinson (1830–1886).