100+ Emily Dickinson Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Topics: Beauty, Children

Quotation Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the Quotes

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

Topics: Inspirational, Inspiring, Truth, Emily

Quotation Emily Dickinson We turn not older with years but newer every day Quotes

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

Topics: Encouraging, Spiritual, Not Giving Up, Opportunity Knocking, Best Opportunity

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

source: - " 'Hope' is the thing with feathers" l. 1 (ca. 1862) SeeWoody Allen 20

Topics: Inspirational, Hope, Soul, Hope And Faith, Extremity

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

source: - "Selected Letters". Edited by Thomas H. Johnson,

Topics: Life, Happiness, Positivity, Inner Peace And Happiness, Joy Of Living

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.

Topics: Love, Inspirational, Life

The brain is wider than the sky.

Topics: Inspirational, Learning, Sky, Emily

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Topics: Love, Inspirational, Life, Memorial For Loved One, Pain In Life

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

Topics: Love, Hope, Bird, Birdsong, Parrots

We turn not older with years but newer every day.

source: - Emily Dickinson, Thomas Herbert Johnson, Theodora Ward (1986). “The Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.499, Harvard University Press

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Birthday, Inspirational Age, Emily

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Topics: Nature, Writing, Adversity, Emily

My love for those I love -- not many -- not very many, but don't I love them so?

Forever is composed of nows.

source: - Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.2106, Delphi Classics

Topics: Happiness, Carpe Diem, Power, Old Soul

A Word that Breathes Distinctly Has not the Power to Die

Topics: Breathe

My friends are my estate.

Topics: Love, Friendship, Family

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

Topics: Inspirational, Women, Writing, Spiritual Soul, Inspirational Wisdom

They might not need me; but they might. I'll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

Topics: Happiness, Smile, Laughter, Helpfulness

If your Nerve, deny you - Go above your Nerve

Topics: Courage, Nerves, Deny

The Soul should always stand ajar.

Topics: Soul, Should

Saying nothing... sometimes says the most.

Topics: Life, Wisdom, Communication, Effective Communication, Emily

I felt it shelter to speak to you.

Topics: Inspirational, Relationship, Smile

Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.

Topics: Good Luck, Toil, Chance, Emily, Preparation And Opportunity

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 a chart were given.

Topics: Faith, Sea, Heaven, Emily, Moors

These are the days when birds come back, a very few, a Bird or two, to take a backward look.

Topics: Two, Bird, Looks

There is no frigate like a book

Topics: Book, Libraries Books And Reading, Emily, Prancing

For love is immortality.

Topics: Love, Romantic, Romance

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

Topics: Done, Literature, Littles

The Soul selects her own Society.

source: - "The Soul selects her own society" l. 1 (ca. 1862)

Topics: Soul

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.

Topics: Love, Morning, Dawn, Funny Good Morning, Cute Love

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Topics: Love, Inspirational, Life, Labrador Dogs, Stray Dogs

The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.

Topics: Men, Dazzle, Blind, Truth Be Told

The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care

Topics: Heart, Doe, Care

One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Needs, Inspirational Halloween, Spooky Halloween

PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there's a word to lift your hat to... to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that's the genius behind poetry.

Topics: Light, Genius, Hats, Light Within

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.

Topics: Love, Life, Arguing, Emily

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

Topics: Tragedy, Literature, Bees, Prairie, Pollination

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

Topics: Age, Aging, Old Age

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Motivational

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Topics: Taken, Writing, Poetry, Great Poet, Emily

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Topics: Hammers, Anvils

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Topics: God, Spiritual, Memorable, Recluse, Emily

The past is not a package one can lay away.

Topics: Past

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Topics: Men, Names, Giving

Till I loved I never lived.

Topics: Love, Romantic, Romance, Loving Children, Meaning Of Love

Much Madness is divinest Sense -- To a discerning Eye -- Much Sense -- the starkest Madness -- 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail -- Assent -- and you are sane -- Demur -- you're straightway dangerous -- And handled with a Chain --

Topics: Eye, Majority, Madness, Insanity And Sanity, Emily

November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.

Topics: Years, Norway, November, November Poems

Bring me the sunset in a cup.

Topics: Sunset, Cups

I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, "That must have been the sun!

Topics: Squirrels, Rose, Sun, Steeples, Amethyst

How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?

Topics: Morning, Clothes, People

I confess that I love him, I rejoice that I love him, I thank the maker of Heaven and Earth that gave him to me. The exultation floods me.

Topics: Love, Heaven, Earth

Hold dear to your parents for it is a scary and confusing world without them.

Topics: Parent, Scary, Confusing

The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee...

Topics: Regret, Flower, Lovely

I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size.

Topics: Grief, Eye, Grieving, Probing, Recovering From Grief

I must go in, the fog is rising.

Topics: Halloween, Fog, Rising, Spooky

[A] mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.

Topics: Mom, Mother, Mom And Daughter, I Love My Mother, Just A Mom

Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Break, Life Is Precious, Life Is Fragile

The spreading wide my narrow Hands / To gather Paradise-.

Topics: Hands, Paradise

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

Topics: Summer, Nature, Tree, Inspirational Nature, Emily

Where thou art, that is home.

Topics: Happiness, Art, Soulmate, Emily, Comfort Of Home

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

Topics: Death, Spiritual, Night, Wild Nights, Emily

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

Topics: Love, Sympathy, Death, Inspirational Bereavement, Inspirational Condolences

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

source: - Emily Dickinson, Frances Schoonmaker Bolin (1994). “Emily Dickinson”, p.7, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

Topics: Life, Time, Memories, Meaning Life, Metaphors Of Life

I dwell in possibility.

source: - "I dwell in possibility" l. 1 (ca. 1862)

Topics: Inspirational, Recovery, Addiction, Thinking Flexibly

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Topics: Happiness, Women, Hard Times, Uplifting In Hard Times

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

Topics: Love, Life, Women, Love Poems, Strong Independent Women

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

Topics: Writing, Enthusiasm, Said, Emily

I'll tell you how the Sun rose.

Topics: Rose, Sun

Fortune befriends the bold.

Topics: Confidence, Courage, Determination

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

Topics: Inspirational, Motivational, Failure, Emily, Coworker

I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

source: - Emily Dickinson (2012). “Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.139, Courier Corporation

Topics: Lanterns

Pardon My Sanity In A World Insane

Topics: Insane, World, Sanity

I would like more sisters, that the taking out of one, might not leave such stillness.

Topics: Sister, Sibling, Might, Inspirational Sister, Inspirational Sisterhood

Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.

Topics: Inspirational, Life, Art, Emily, Haunted Houses

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can 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?

Topics: Book, Taken, Fire, Emily, Reading Poetry

The poet lights the light and fades away. But the light goes on and on.

Topics: Light, Goes On, Poet

The sun just touched the morning; The morning, happy thing, Supposed that he had come to dwell, And life would be all spring.

Topics: Morning, Spring, Would Be, Happy Things

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.

Topics: Friendship, Mind, Letters, Letter Writing

Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the Culprit-Life!

Topics: Life, Knives, Culprit, Surgeons, Emily

I work to drive the awe away, yet awe impels the work.

Topics: Awe

To be aliveâ”€â”€is Power.

Topics: Alive

One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.

Topics: Halloween, House, Brain

The possible's slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.

Topics: Carpe Diem, Imagination, Possibility, Creative Imagination, Fuse

If I can stop one heart from breakingâ€¦â€ Emily Dickinson 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.

Topics: Sympathy, Pain, Heart

If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves. You can gain more control over your life by paying closer attention to the little things.

Topics: Happiness, Over You, Care

The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.

Topics: Spring, Food, Garden, Pedigree, Clovers

That love is all there is, Is all we know of love.

Topics: Love, Relationship, Reading, Wedding Speech, True Love Conquers All

My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.

Topics: Encouragement, Heaven, Events

I dwell in possibilities .

Topics: Healing, Possibility

Eden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode until we drive away.

Topics: Happiness, Eden, House, Abode

The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul--BOOKS.

Topics: Book, Reading, Writing

The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind.

Topics: Science, Religion, Would Be

This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me

Topics: Compassion, World, Letters

I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.

Topics: Common Sense, Profound, Words Of Wisdom

I tasted life.

Faith-is the pierless bridge supporting what We see unto the scene that we do not.

Topics: Faith, Bridges, Scene

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, -

Topics: Bees, Clovers, Prairie

A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.

Topics: Kings, Spring, Insanity, March Poems, Spring Is Here

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself.

Topics: Dog, Hills, Companion

Drunkards of summer are quite as frequent as Drunkards of wine.

Topics: Summer, Wine

We dream â€” it is good we are dreaming â€” It would hurt us â€” were we awake â€” But since it is playing â€” kill us, And we are playing â€” shriek â€” What harm? Men die â€” externally â€” It is a truth â€” of Blood â€” But we â€” are dying in Drama â€” And Drama â€” is never dead â€” Cautious â€” We jar each other â€” And either â€” open the eyes â€” Lest the Phantasm â€” prove the Mistake â€” And the livid Surprise Cool us to Shafts of Granite â€” With just an Age â€” and Name â€” And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian â€” It's prudenter â€” to dream â€”

Topics: Dream, Hurt, Mistake

The dandelion's pallid tube Astonishes the grass, And winter instantly becomes An infinite alas.

Topics: Winter, Dandelions, Infinite

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble.

Topics: Believe, Nimble, Hours

When everything that ticked has stopped, and space stares, all around, or grisly frosts, first autumn morns, repeal the beating ground.

Topics: Autumn, Space, Frost, October And Fall, Fall Season

A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld,â€” The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies,â€” Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies.

Topics: Wish, Peers, Veils, Mesh

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!

Topics: Time, Brother, Flower

I imagine therefore I belong and am free.

Topics: Imagine, Visualization

Forever is composed of NowsÂ— 'Tis not a different timeÂ— Except for InfinitenessÂ— And Latitude of Home

Topics: Home, Forever, Different

Portrait The world spreads out on either side no farther than the heart is wide.

Topics: Women, Heart, Portraits

Witchcraft was hung, in History, But History and I Find all the Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day -

Topics: Needs, Witchcraft, Hung

A power of Butterfly must be - The Aptitude to fly Meadows of Majesty concedes And easy Sweeps of Sky -

Topics: Butterfly, Sky, Majesty

I wonder if it hurts to live, And if they have to try, And whether, could they choose between, They would not rather die.

Topics: Hurt, Trying, Wonder

It was a quiet way - He asked if I was his - I made no answer of the tongue But answer of the eyes - And then He bore me on Before this mortal noise With swiftness, as of Chariots and distance, as of Wheels. This World did drop away As acres from the feet of one that leaneth from Balloon Upon an Ether Street. The Gulf behind was not, The Continents were new - Eternity was due. No Seasons were to us - It was not Night nor Morn - But Sunrise stopped upon the place And Fastened in Dawn.

Topics: Distance, Eye, Night, Swiftness

Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze.

Topics: Tired, Sleep, Love Is, Abet

When I state myself, as the representative of the verse, it does not mean me, but a supposed person.

Topics: Mean, Doe, States

The Spider as an Artist Has never been employed- Though his surpassing Merit Is freely certified.

Topics: Artist, Spiders, Merit, Surpassing

I see thee better in the dark I do not need a light.

Topics: Dark, Light, Needs

Suspense-is Hostiler than Death-Death- tho soever Broad, Is just Death, and cannot increase- Suspense-does not conclude-.

Topics: Insecurity, Doe, Suspense

By Chivalries as tiny, A Blossom, or a Book, The seeds of smiles are planted- Which Blossom in the dark.

Topics: Kindness, Book, Dark

Behold this little Bane- The Boon of all alive- As common as it is unknown The name of it is Love.

Topics: Love, Names, Alive, Bane

The only Commandment I ever obeyed â€” 'Consider the Lilies.

Topics: Lilies

After great pain, a formal feeling comes â€” The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs â€” The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round â€” Of Ground, or Air, or Ought â€” A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone â€” This is the Hour of Lead â€” Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow â€” First â€” Chill â€” then Stupor â€” then the letting go â€”

Topics: Letting Go, Pain, Heart, Quartz, Emily

I HIDE myself within my flower That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me tooâ€” And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness...

Topics: Loneliness, Flower, Angel, Unsuspecting

I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me

Topics: Dog, Sea, Mermaid

Pain - has an Element of Blank It cannot recollect When it begun - or if there 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.

Topics: Pain, Past, Elements

To shut your eyes is to travel.

Topics: Travel, Eye

Superiority to Fate Is difficult to gain 'Tis not conferred of Any But possible to earn.

Topics: Fate, Luck, Gains

Angels in the early morning may be seen the dews among. Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying. Do the buds to them belong?

Topics: Morning, Angel, Flying, Early Morning

'Arcturus' is his other name- I'd rather call him 'Star.' It's very mean of Science To go and interfere!

Topics: Stars, Mean, Science

I could not stop for death and he did not stop for me.

Topics: Death, Dying

Hope is a strange invention - A Patent of the Heart - In unremitting action Yet never wearing out

Topics: Heart, Patents, Action

To possess is past the instant; we achieve the joy, immortality contented, were anomaly.

Topics: Happiness, Past, Joy

To be alive is power; existence in itself; without a further function; omnipotence.

Topics: Life, Omnipotence, Alive

As Summer into Autumn slips And yet we sooner say "The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest We turn the sun away, And almost count it an Affront The presence to concede Of one however lovely, not The one that we have loved - So we evade the charge of Years On one attempting shy The Circumvention of the Shaft Of Life's Declivity.

Topics: Summer, Autumn, Years

The last of Summer is Delight - Deterred by Retrospect. 'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review - Enchantment's Syndicate. To meet it - nameless as it is - Without celestial Mail - Audacious as without a Knock To walk within the Veil.

Topics: Summer, Enchantment, Delight, Nameless, Syndicate

This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me, the simple news that nature told, with tender majesty. Her message is committed, to hands I cannot see; for love of her, sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me.

Topics: Sweet, Nature, Simple

A dim capacity for wings demeans the dress I wear.

Topics: Philosophy, Wings, Dresses

We trust in plumed procession For such the angels go Rank after rank, with even feet/And uniforms of snow.

Topics: Angel, Feet, Snow, Angelic

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

Topics: Song, Wings, Bees, Emily

Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth

Topics: Inspirational Life, Earth, Creation

Of Consciousness, her awful Mate. The Soul cannot be rid - as easy the secreting her behind the Eyes of God.

Topics: Eye, Soul, Awful

Opinion is a flitting thing But Truth outlasts the Sun.

source: - Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1971). “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.56, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

Topics: Truth, Sun, Opinion

I like a look of Agony, because I know it's true - men do not sham Convulsion, nor simulate, a Throe

Topics: Men, Agony, Suffering, True Man, Simulate

All things do go a-courting, In earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single But thee in His world so fair.

Topics: Air, Sea, Engagement

Death is a supple suitor, that wins at last. It is a stealthy wooing; conducted first by pallid innuendos and dim approach, but brave at last with bugles.

Topics: Death, Winning, Brave, Innuendo, Supple

To ignore or use silence is a cruel tool. Hence this quote: Silence is all we dread; there's ransom in a voice; but silence is infinity.

Topics: Bullying, Voice, Silence

Beauty is not caused, it is; Chase it and it ceases, Chase it not and it abides...

Topics: Spirituality

Besides the Autumn poets sing, A few prosaic days, A little this side of the snow, And that side of the Haze..., Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind- Thy windy will to bear!

Topics: Autumn, Snow, Mind, October And Fall, Fall Autumn

Each that we lose takes a part of us; A crescent still abides, Which like the moon, some turbid night, Is summoned by the tides.

Topics: Loss, Moon, Night, Crescent

An altered look about the hills; A Tyrian light the village fills; A wider sunrise in the dawn; A deeper twilight on the lawn; A print of a vermilion foot; A purple finger on the slope; A flippant fly upon the pane; A spider at his trade again; An added strut in chanticleer; A flower expected everywhere ...

Topics: Spring, Flower, Twilight, Flippant

Spring is the Period Express from God. Among the other seasons Himself abide, But during March and April None stir abroad Without a cordial interview With God.

Topics: Spring, Interviews, April

A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period - When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay - A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament.

Topics: Spring, Loss, Light, Spring Garden, Spring Gardening

March is the month of expectation, The things we do not know, The Persons of Prognostication Are coming now. We try to sham becoming firmness, But pompous joy Betrays us, as his first betrothal Betrays a boy.

Topics: Spring, Boys, Expectations, Prognostication

A light exists in Spring Not present in the year at any other period When March is scarcely here.

Topics: Spring, Light, Years

Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb - or Dome of Worm - or Porch of Gnome - or some Elf's Catacomb?

Topics: Home, Domes, Worms, Home Home, Gnome

We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg.

Topics: Educational, Eggs, Bird

My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them!

Topics: Friendship, Forgive Me, Forgiving, Lest We Forget, Forget Him

The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on.

Topics: Fall, Nuts, Rose, Maple, October And Fall

Answer July- Where is the Bee- Where is the Blush- Where is the Hay? Ah, said July- Where is the Seed- Where is the Bud- Where is the May- Answer Thee-Me-

Topics: Summer, July, Bud

This so much joy! This 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!

Topics: Joy, Victory, Poverty

Two Seasons, it is said, exist- The Summer of the Just, And this of Ours, diversified With Prospect, and with Frost- May not our Second with its First So infinite compare That We but recollect the one The other to prefer?

Topics: Summer, June, Two

Endow the Living - with the Tears - You squander on the Dead.

Topics: Loss, Tears

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old...

Topics: Book, Thinking, Hands, Quaint

The world allured me & in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me & told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger & was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return & ever since my heart has been growing harder.

Topics: Heart, Voice, Atheism

The Spirit lurks within the Flesh Like Tides within the Sea That make the Water live, estranged What would the Either be?

Topics: Sea, Water, Being Positive

I cannot help esteem The 'Bird within the Hand' Superior to the one The 'Bush' may yield me Or may not Too late to choose again

Topics: Yield, Hands, Bird

Assent - and you are sane - Demur - and you're straightaway dangerous - and handled with a chain.

Topics: Atheism, Chains, Dangerous

The minister today preached about death and judgment, and what would become of those who behaved improperly - and somehow it scared me. He preached such an awful sermon I didn't think I should ever see you again until the Judgment Day. The subject of perdition seemed to please him somehow.

Topics: Thinking, Atheism, Awful, Judgment Day

Does not Eternity appear dreadful to you. I often get to thinking of it and it seems so dark to me that I almost wish there was no Eternity. To think that we must forever live and never cease to be. It seems as if Death would be a relief to so endless a state of existence.

Topics: Dark, Thinking, Forever

I died for Beauty--but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room

Topics: Beauty, Death, Truth, Scarce

Elysium is as far as to The very nearest room, If in that room a friend await Felicity of doom.

Topics: Friendship, Happiness, Elysium

I never lost as much but twice, And that was in the sod.

Topics: Death, Loss, Lost, Sod

Just girt me for the onset with Eternity, When breath blew back, And on the other side I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Topics: Death, Tides, Sides

When he tells us about his Father, we distrust him. When he shows us his Home, we turn away, but when he confides to us that he is acquainted with grief, we listen, for that also is an acquaintance of our own.

Topics: Father, Grief, Home

Some Arrows slay but whom they strike - But this slew all but him - Who so appareled his Escape - Too trackless for a Tomb

Topics: Arrows, Atheism, Strikes

I do not feel I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.

Topics: Giving Up, Atheism, Christ

I am one of the lingering bad ones, and so do I slink away, and pause, and ponder, and ponder, and pause, and do work without knowing why - not surely for this brief world, and more sure it is not for heaven - and I ask what this message of Christ means.

Topics: Mean, Knowing, Heaven, Pauses

You are out of the way of temptation and out of the way of the tempter - I didn't mean to make you wicked - but I was - and am - and shall be - and I was with you so much that I couldn't help contaminate.

Topics: Mean, Temptation, Wicked

What shall we do my darling, when trial grows more, and more, when the dim, lone light expires, and it's dark, so very dark, and we wander, and know not where, and cannot get out of the forest - whose is the hand to help us, and to lead, and forever guide us? ... Where do you think I've strayed and from what new errand returned. I have come from to and fro, and walking up and down the same place that Satan hailed from when God asked where he'd been.

Topics: Dark, Thinking, Light, Lone

You are nipping in the bud fancies which I let blossom. The shore is safer, but I love to buffet the sea - I can count the bitter wrecks here in these pleasant waters, and hear the murmuring winds, but oh, I love the danger!

Topics: Wind, Sea, Water, Murmuring

God's little Blond Blessing we have long deemed you, and hope his so-called Will will not compel him to revoke you.

Topics: Blessing, Long, Atheism

Heavenly Father - take to thee The supreme iniquity Fashioned by thy candid Hand In a moment contraband - Though to trust us seem to us More respectful - We are Dust - We apologize to thee For thine own Duplicity.

Topics: Father, Duplicity, Dust

The Crime, from us, is hidden, [though] he is presumed to know.

Topics: Atheism, Crime, Positive Atheism

Within thy Grave! Oh no, but on some other flight - Thou only camest to mankind To rend it with Good night

Topics: Good Night, Atheism, Flight

My life closed twice before its close

Topics: Death

The sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another day For an approving God.

Topics: Time, Another Day, Sun, Approving

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

Topics: Brain, Sound, Weight

It sounded as if the streets were running, And then the streets stood still.

Topics: Running, Streets, Stills

Which Anguish was the utterest--then-- To perish, or to live?

Topics: Worry, Anguish

And then--a Day as huge As Yesterdays in pairs, Unrolled its horror in my face-- Until it blocked my eyes

Topics: Patience, Gratitude, Eye, Blocked

A Dominie in Gray-- Put gently up the evening Bars-- And led the flock away

Topics: Bars, Evening, Flocks

The Service without Hope Is tenderest, I think-- ... There is no Diligence like that That knows not an Until

Topics: Thinking, Diligence, Without Hope

A Clock stopped-- Not the Mantel's-- Geneva's farthest skill Can't put the puppet bowing-- That just now dangled still

Topics: Skills, Puppets, Clock, Geneva

Fearless--the cobweb swings from the ceiling-- Indolent Housewife--in Daisies--lain!

Topics: Swings, Fearless, Ceilings

What Soft--Cherubic Creatures-- These Gentlewomen are-- One would as soon assault a Plush-- Or violate a Star

Topics: Stars, Assault, Creatures

Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on.

Topics: Should, Trinkets, Old Fashioned

Remorse is cureless--the Disease Not even God--can heal-- For 'tis His institution--and The Adequate of Hell

Topics: Adequate, Disease, Hell

A courteous, yet harrowing Grace, As Guest, that would be gone

Topics: Grace, Would Be, Gone, Courteous

The revery alone will do If bees are few.

Topics: Dream, Bees, Prairie, Pollination, Clovers

I stepped from Plank to Plank A slow and cautious way

Topics: Way, Caution, Cautious, Precarious, Gait

And you dropt, lost, When something broke-- And let you from a Dream

Topics: Dream, Broke, Lost

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