Quotes from Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Require sorest need. Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory, As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break, agonized and clear.

This world is not conclusion. A species stands beyond - Invisible, as Music - But positive as Sound

Whose fingers string the stalactite- Who counts the Wampum of the night

The Dark—felt beautiful—

There is another sky, Ever serene and fair, And there is another sunshine, Though it be darkness there; Never mind faded forests, Austin, Never mind silent fields - Here is a little forest, Whose leaf is ever green; Here is a brighter garden, Where not a frost has been; In its unfading flowers I hear the bright bee hum: Prithee, my brother, Into my garden come!

The career of flowers differs from ours only in inaudibleness. I feel more reverence as I grow for these mute creatures whose suspense or transport may surpass my own.

And then a Plank in Reason, broke/And I dropped down, and down

If I wasn't a perfect woman, I'd bust you in the nose.

I need you more and more, and the great world grows wider, and dear ones fewer and fewer, every day that you stay away --

Look back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!

My Country is Truth.

Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.

It's such a little thing to weep - So short a thing to sigh - And yet - by Trades - the size of these We men and women die!

We all have moments with the dust, but the dew is given.

A wounded deer leaps highest, A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'Tis but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs: A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings! Mirth is mail of anguish, In which its cautious arm Lest anybody spy the blood And, you're hurt exclaim

After you went, a low wind warbled through the house like a spacious bird, making it high but lonely. When you had gone the love came. I supposed it would. The supper of the heart is when the guest has gone.

I am afraid to own a Body— I am afraid to own a Soul—

Softened by Time's consummate plush, How sleek the woe appears That threatened childhood's citadel And undermined the years! Bisected now by bleaker griefs, We envy the despair That devastated childhood's realm, So easy to repair.

The Inevitable While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A whole existence through.

Fame is a bee. It has a song - It has a sting - Ah, too, it has a wing.

Bind me-I still can sing- Banish-my mandolin Strikes true within- Slay-and my Soul shall rise Chanting to Paradise- Still thine.

Perception of an object costs Precise the Object's loss—

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, Acknowledge him a man.

For love is immortality.