Emily Dickinson Quotes: 22 Sayings By Reclusive American Poet On Death Anniversary

May 15 marks the 132nd death anniversary of American poet Emily Dickinson.

Dickinson was a poet beyond her times, constantly experimenting with different forms of expression and refused to adhere to the conventional writing of the 17th century. The first volume of her poetry was published in 1890, four years after her death. It was met with instance success, Poetry Foundation reported.

Dickinson chose to lead an isolated life, away from the limelight, maintaining only some selected correspondences and spending most of her time reading books. Here are a few quotes by the reclusive poet from Brany Quote:

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

“Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.”

“I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.”

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

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

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

“If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.”

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

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

“In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery.”

“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.”

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

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”

“I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves.”

“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.”

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

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

“We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came.”

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

“Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.”

“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.”

“God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.”