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Emily Dickinson Quotes

1830–1886 United States

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Virtually unknown in her lifetime, Dickinson has come to be regarded as one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century.

United States
19th-century poets
Authors
Poets

Also known as: Dickinson, Emily

Random Emily Dickinson quote

66 quotes

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 ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Letter to T. W. Higginson (1870)

Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature’s curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in,
For this was woman’s son.
"'Twas all I had," she stricken gasped;
Oh, what a livid boon!

The distance that the dead have gone
Does not at first appear;
Their coming back seems possible
For many an ardent year.
And then, that we have followed them
We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.

Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled—he did not fall—
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes—
He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledged him a man.

What fortitude the Soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot -
The opening of a Door -

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

Misattributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Emily Dickinson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.