Emily Dickinson Quotes

Forever is composed of nows

I dwell in Possibility.

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die-

It's all I have to bring to-day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, --
Someone the sum could tell, --
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

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 -

Pain - has an Element of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if it were
A time when it was not -

It has no future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightened to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.

Heart! We will forget him!
You and I -- tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave --
I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me
That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you're lagging
I remember him!

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.

Tell all the truth, but tell it slant— …
The truth must dazzle gradually—
Or every man be blind.

Pain—has an element of blank—
It cannot recollect
When it begun—or if there were
A time when it was not.

A wounded deer—leaps highest.

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

How dreary to be somebody,
How public—like a frog—
To tell your name the livelong June
To an admiring bog.

Faith is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see.
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.

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.

Prayer is the little implement
Through which men reach
Where presence—is denied them.

Of course—I prayed—
And did God care?
He cared as much as on the air
A bird—had stamped her foot
And cried, “Give me.”

I'll tell you how the sun rose—
A ribbon at a time.

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the king.

Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.