WednesdayJan 28, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.
Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat.
A little madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.
Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.
Beauty is not caused, - it is; Chase it and it ceases, Chase it not and it abides...
Anger as soon as fed is dead 'Tis starving makes it fat.
Dying is a wild night and a new road.
Faith is a fine invention For gentlemen who see; But Microscopes are prudent In an emergency.
Fame is a bee It has a song- It has a sting- Ah, too, it has a wing.
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need.
How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog.
That it will never come again Is what makes life so sweet.
Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me The Carriage held but just Ourselves - and Immortality.
Parting is all we know of heaven And all we need of Hell.
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
Surgeons must be very careful, When they take the knife!, Underneath their fine incisions, Stirs the Culprit — Life!
Let us go in; the fog is rising.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.
We turn not older with years, but newer every day.
Assent—and you are sane—, Demur—you're straightway dangerous—, And handled with a Chain—....
Beauty is not caused. It is.
His Labor is a Chant — His Idleness —a Tune — Oh, for a Bee's experience Of Clovers, and of Noon!
The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small — Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all.
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry.
The brain is wider than the sky; For put them side by side The one the other will contain with ease — And you beside.
Unto a broken heart No other one may go Without the high prerogative Itself hath suffered too.
We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg.
You remember my ideal cat has always a huge rat in its mouth, just going out of sight — though going out of sight in itself has a peculiar pleasure.
How much can come And much can go, And yet abide the world!
Of Consciousness, her awful Mate The Soul cannot be rid — As easy the secreting her Behind the Eyes of God.
The dandelion's pallid tube Astonishes the grass, And winter instantly becomes An infinite alas.
The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear — Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year.
A Deed knocks first at Thought And then — it knocks at Will — That is the manufacturing spot.
I took one Draught of Life — I'll tell you what I paid — Precisely an existence — The market price, they said.
For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.
Our journey had advanced; Our feet were almost come To that odd fork in Being's road, Eternity by term.
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.
'Faith' is a fine invention When Gentleman can see — But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency
Faith —is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not —.
Fame is a bee It has a song — It has a sting — Ah, too, it has a wing.
Fame is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate.
Till the first friend dies, we think our ecstasy impersonal, but then discover that he was the cup from which we drank it, itself as yet unknown.
Our little kinsmen after rain In plenty may be seen, A pink and pulpy multitude The tepid ground upon; A needless life it seemed to me Until a little bird As to a hospitality Advanced and breakfasted.
What fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure The accent of a coming Foot— The opening of a Door.
My friends are my estate.
They say God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.
Called Back
I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing Eyes — I wonder if It weighs like Mine — Or has an Easier size.
To multiply the harbors does not reduce the sea.
My only sketch, profile, of Heaven is a large blue sky, and larger than the biggest I have seen in June — and in it are my friends — every one of them.
Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God’s residence is next to mine— His furniture is love.
Where thou art, that is home.
The Pedigree of Honey Does not concern the Bee — A Clover, any time, to him, Is Aristocracy —
Hope it strange invention — A Patent of the Heart — In unremitting action Yet never wearing out.
A great Hope fell You heard no noise The Ruin was within.
How odd that girl's life looks Behind this soft eclipse! I think that earth seems so To those in heaven now. This being comfort, then That other kind was pain; But why compare? I'm wife! stop there!
God gave a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me.
You can stay young as long as you learn.
A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.
This is the Hour of Lead — Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow — First —Chill —then Stupor —then the letting go —.
I cannot live with You — It would be Life — And Life is over there — Behind the Shelf.
I ... am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.
I argue thee that love is life And life hath immortality.
Luck is not chance — It's toil — Fortune's expensive smile Is earned.
Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense —the starkest Madness —
Ample make this Bed — Make this Bed with Awe — In it wait till Judgment break Excellent and Fair.
His mind of man, a secret makes I meet him with a start He carries a circumference In which I have no part.
Nature is what we know — Yet have not art to say — So impotent our wisdom is To her simplicity.
Nature, like us is sometimes caught Without her diadem.
This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me— The simple News that Nature told— With tender majesty.
I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — Too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise — you know!
Not to discover weakness is The Artifice of strength.
Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.
Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.
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. Is there any other way?
No Life can pompless pass away — The lowliest career To the same Pageant wends its way As that exalted here —.
I dwell in Possibility — A fairer House than Prose — More numerous of Windows — Superior —for Doors —.
The Possible's slow fuse is lit By the Imagination.
To make a prairie It takes clover and one bee One clover, and a bee, and reverie. The reverie alone will do, If bees are few.
Prayer is the little implement Through which men reach Where presence — is denied them.
To fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom The Cavalry of Woe.
Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.
Remorse —is Memory —awake — Her Parties all astir — A Presence of Departed Acts — At window —and at Door —
If I shouldn't be alive When the robins come, Give the one in red cravat A memorial crumb.
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church, I keep it staying at Home With a bobolink for a Chorister, And an Orchard, for a Dome.
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
The Soul unto itself Is an imperial friend — Or the most agonizing Spy — An Enemy —could send —.
We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise. And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.
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.
Inebriate of Air – am I – And Debauchee of Dew – Reeling through endless summer days – From inns of Molten Blue.
To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie True Poems flee
Preface to Emily Dickinson's Poems. by Thomas W. Higginson (1823–1911) US clergyman, author When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson in grammar seems an impertinence.
Nods from the Gilded pointers — Nods from the Seconds slim — Decades of Arrogance between The Dial life — And Him —
The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind.
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies.
'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory!
There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight Of Cathedral tunes.
A word is dead, When it is said; Some say. I say It just began to live that day.
A Wounded deer — leaps highest.
Dreams are the subtle Dower That make us rich an Hour Then fling us poor Out of the purple door.
Heaven is so far of the Mind That were the Mind dissolved — The Site —of it —by Architect Could not again be proved —
I felt it shelter to speak to you.
I like a look of Agony, Because I know it's true — Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe —
Till it has loved, no man or woman can become itself.
Will you tell me my fault, frankly as to yourself, for I had rather wince, than die. Men do not call the surgeon to commend the bone, but to set it, Sir.
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.
He ate and drank the precious Words, His Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was Dust.
The Soul should always stand ajar.
Angels in the early morning May be seen the dews among. Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying. Do the buds to them belong?
Anger as soon as fed is dead — 'Tis starving makes it fat.
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand When we with Daisies lie— That Commerce will continue— And Trades as briskly fly.
She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.
That love is all there is is all we know of love.
Pain — has an element of Blank — It cannot recollect When it begun — or if there were A time when it was not....
This World is not Conclusion. A Sequel stands beyond— Invisible, as Music— But positive, as Sound.
To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
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