Heart, we will forget him, You and I, tonight! You must forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light.
Emily DickinsonRead
The only secret people keep is immortality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that the concept of immortality is the only truth that people hide or avoid discussing openly.
Emily Dickinson's quote highlights the universal human preoccupation with mortality and the secretiveness surrounding the idea of immortality. It implies that while people may openly discuss many topics, the reality of death and the desire for eternal life are often left unspoken, hinting at a deep existential fear and a longing for permanence that is rarely acknowledged in public discourse.
Themes
ImmortalityDeathSecretsExistentialismHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the human relationship with death, one may quote Dickinson to illustrate the societal reluctance to address mortality.
More from Emily Dickinson
All quotes βI held a jewel in my fingers And went to sleep. The day was warm, and winds were prosy; I said: "'T will keep." I woke and chid my honest fingers,β The gem was gone; And now an amethyst remembrance Is all I own.
Emily DickinsonRead
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!
Emily DickinsonRead
My best Acquaintances are those With Whom I spoke no Word
Emily DickinsonRead
This is the Hour of Lead- Remembered, if outlived, As freezing persons, recollect the Snow- First-Chill-then Stupor- then the letting go---
Emily DickinsonRead
Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.
Emily DickinsonRead
Similar quotes
The fortune my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
Ayn RandRead
I feel like a lot of times we're put in a box that people always say: 'Oh, sports and politics should stay separate and all this.' And I say, yes, but also at the same time, I'm a human first before I'm a tennis player.
Coco GauffRead
It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.
Barbara JordanRead
Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army and calls it a war.
Noam ChomskyRead
I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same; and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.
Walt WhitmanRead
From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.
Tom StoppardRead