Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.
My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them!
Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.
Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Portrait The world spreads out on either side no farther than the heart is wide.
A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
I would like more sisters, that the taking out of one, might not leave such stillness.
I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.
Faith is a fine invention When gentlemen can see, But microscopes are prudent In an emergency.
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
Elysium is as far as to The very nearest room, If in that room a friend await Felicity of doom.
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.
A shady friend for torrid days Is easier to find Than one of higher temperature For frigid hour of mind.
And then--a Day as huge As Yesterdays in pairs, Unrolled its horror in my face-- Until it blocked my eyes
Within thy Grave! Oh no, but on some other flight - Thou only camest to mankind To rend it with Good night
God is indeed a jealous God. He cannot bear to see, that we had rather not with him, but with each other play.
She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.
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.
We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother - but... when she became our child, the affection came.
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.
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.
... And then I heard them lift a box, And creak across my soul With those same boots of lead, again, Then space began to toll.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Affection is like bread, unnoticed till we starve, and then we dream of it, and sing of it, and paint it, when every urchin in the street has more than he can eat.
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.
I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still... I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose.
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.
Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!
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.
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.
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.
I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.