Literary Birthday – 10 December – Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born 10 December 1830, and died 15 May 1886.

Emily Dickinson Quotes

1. We meet no Stranger, but Ourself
2. To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
3. Hope is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul.
4. If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
5. Forever is composed of nows.
6. I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.
7. I don’t profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.
8. Behaviour is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.
9. A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.
10. That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.

Must-read: How To Use Emily Dickinson’s 4 Super Simple Writing Techniques

Emily Dickinson was an American poet. She is acknowledged as one of the most original and influential poets of the 19th Century, recognised for her bold and original verse. Her work is known for its ‘epigrammatic compression, haunting personal voice, enigmatic brilliance, and lack of high polish’. She did not follow strict poetical form and even the rules of grammar. Largely unpublished and unknown during her lifetime, her poems are now regarded as canonical. Her poetry is available in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, and her letters can be read in The Letters of Emily Dickinson. She wrote at a small writing table in her bedroom. She was a good cook and an even better baker. Click here for Emily Dickinson’s Coconut Cake Recipe.

Source for Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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