10 Quotes By Emily Dickinson To Inspire You To Live

Are you living or are you just existing?

Photo by Andressa Voltolini on Unsplash

There’s something about reading quotes that calls us to attention. It breaks through the noise and can make us rethink the world.

Lately, I’ve fallen in love with the work of Emily Dickinson. It’s inspiring, profound and makes me question where I’m going. Her work makes me want to live a full life, not one so bare as it is right now.

If you’re thinking you could live a little bit more each day, here are some quotes for you.

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

Do you spend enough of your life living? Some days can be all work, the weekends needed only to rest up before doing it all again. That leaves little time for enjoying life at all.

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

How many times have you said no? You don’t want to go to that party — even though it could be great — because it’s a lot of effort to get ready. You might choose a night in with takeaway over a trip to the restaurant instead.

Routine and comfort kill spontaneity. It’s easy to settle into a life that never pushes us to do more, go further. The world is waiting for us to walk away from routine and say ‘yes’ to adventure.

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”

Every day is a new beginning and there’s a lot of days thrown away, given to binging on television or starting at screens while we scroll.

Do you ever think of where you could be without all the distractions? I look at my phone and wonder how much it’s held me back.

We’ll never get this chance again. We need to use every day as best we can.

“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”

Age seems to cause a lot of pressure nowadays. How often have you measured your success against someone else?

Yesterday, I was upset that someone four years younger than me got an opportunity I had wanted. I felt hopeless, as though I was never going to get anywhere because they’re younger and more successful.

But my years have been different to theirs. We don’t grow at the same rate. We develop different skills each day and comparison is futile.

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

When we die, we will be remembered by those we left a mark on.

It’s simple — how do you want to be remembered? As a light that brightened the room? As a person who never took chances? As fearless or fearful?

People will remember you because you were loved and all the reasons they loved you will be a part of that. Now is the time you decide what those reasons are.

“Till it has loved, no man or woman can become itself.”

Life without love is life without colour. If we were all careless to one another, it would be hell on earth.

I don’t believe Dickinson means you need romantic love, but love opens you up in ways you never expected. You become more open to different possibilities, new ways of thinking.

Without having loved, you never know who you could be.

“Forever is composed of nows.”

How often do you push things off to the next day, next week, next year?

We’re making choices every day on the way we want to live. Whether it’s saying you’ll start the gym next Monday or leaving your project to the last minute, we’re deciding who we are with every choice.

This is how we’ll be remembered. This is how we develop habits. You push it off once, then twice — next thing you know, you never started and you’re five years down the line.

It’s like the saying ‘everyone has a book in them.’ Most people just never try hard enough to write it.

Are you going to be one of those people? Will you always lead a life knowing you never really tried to live?

“How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!”

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you were ‘somebody?’ To have a name that once you say it, people are at their full attention?

Sometimes I do, I won’t lie. I’d like people to look at me and say “oh wow, is that Jessica Spencer?” I want my skills to be valued and appreciated.

Meanwhile, Dickinson had less than a dozen of her poems published before her death. She didn’t seek literary fame. She valued solitude, keeping to herself.

Fame is overvalued and overrated. The media are constantly pushing this idea of perfect looking people living fantastic lives on us, making us feel smaller.

We’re not. We live differently but it doesn’t mean our lives have less value or are worse off. If you’re living the life you want, who cares what anyone else is doing?

“To shut your eyes is to travel.”

Daydreaming is something everyone has done at one point or another. We all live in our heads and imagine our best life.

Dickinson didn’t have much opportunity to travel and realistically, most of us will never travel to length and breadth of the Earth either.

But dreaming can take us any place we want to be. Sometimes, that’s all the escape you need.

“A wounded deer leaps the highest.”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Dickinson actually wrote this as part of a poem which discusses the exact opposite of that.

Sometimes, we pretend we’re stronger than we are. We keep going, battling our issues and hoping nobody notices.

That’s no way to live.

You don’t need to pretend you’re stronger than you are. Vulnerability is a big part of what it means to be human so give up the act and ask for help. It’s okay to not be okay.