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Principia Discordia

Principia Discordia is a sacred text of Discordianism written by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) and Kerry Thornley (Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst). It was originally published under the title "Principia Discordia or How The West Was Lost With Explanations to Yellow Pages Use" in a limited edition of 5 copies in 1965; for years distributed as a humorous "underground classic" of absurdism, it became far more famous after being quoted extensively in The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
 * See also:
 * Absurdism
 * Trivialism

Principia Discordia
THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA or, How I Found the Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her THE MAGNUM OPIATE OF MALACLYPSE THE YOUNGER Wherein Is Explained Absolutely Everything Worth Knowing About Absolutely Anything
 * Ⓚ ALL RITES REVERSED (K) REPRINT WHAT YOU LIKE

HAIL ERIS! --><-- KALLISTI --><-- ALL HAIL DISCORDIA!

 * Dedicated to the Prettiest One

 * If you want in on the Discordian Society then declare yourself what you wish do what you like and tell us about it or if you prefer don't.

 * There are no rules anywhere.  The Goddess Prevails.

 * All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.
 * The Free Mantra of Sri Syadasti Syadavaktavya Syadasti Syannasti Syadasti Cavaktavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavatavyasca Syadasti Syannasti Syadavaktavyasca (for some strange reason, commonly called Sri Syadasti)
 * Also heretically expressed as: "All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense." and "The teachings of the Sri Syadasti School of Spiritual School of Spiritual Wisdom are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense." — will heresies never cease?

 * Curb Your Dogma.

 * The Enlightened take things Lightly.

 * -JOSHUA NORTON CABAL - Surrealists, Harlequinists, Absurdists and Zonked Artists Melee

POEE

 * POEE is one manifestation of the DISCORDIAN SOCIETY about which you will learn more and understand less We are a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs who are intrigued with ERIS GODDESS OF CONFUSION and with Her Doings.

 * POEE (Pronounced "POEE") is an acronym for the PARATHEO-ANAMETAMYSTIKHOOD OF ERIS ESOTERIC. The first part can be taken to mean "equivalent deity, reversing beyond-mystique". We are not really esoteric, it's just that nobody pays much attention to us.

 * Be Ye Not Lost Among Precepts of Order…-The Book of Uterus 1:5

 * Some excerpts from an interview with Malaclypse the Younger by THE GREATER METROPOLITAN YORBA LINDA HERALD-NEWS-SUN-TRIBUNE-JOURNAL-DISPATCH-POST AND SAN FRANCISCO DISCORDIAN SOCIETY CABAL BULLETIN AND INTERGALACTIC REPORT & POPE POOP. GREATER POOP: Are you really serious or what? MAL-2: Sometimes I take humor seriously. Sometimes I take seriousness humorously. Either way it is irrelevant.

 * GP: Maybe you are just crazy. M2: Indeed! But do not reject these teachings as false because I am crazy. The reason that I am crazy is because they are true. GP: Is Eris true? M2: Everything is true. GP: Even false things? M2: Even false things are true. GP: How can that be? M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it. GP: Why do you deal with so many negatives? M2: To dissolve them. GP: Will you develop that point? M2: No.

 * GP: Is there an essential meaning behind POEE? M2: There is a Zen Story about a student who asked a Master to explain the meaning of Buddhism. The Master's reply was "Three pounds of flax." GP: Is that the answer to my question? M2: No, of course not. That is just illustrative. The answer to your question is FIVE TONS OF FLAX!

THE LAW OF FIVES

 * Everything in the universe relates to the number 5, one way or another, given enough ingenuity on the part of the interpreter.

 * The Law of Fives is one of the oldest Erisian Mysterees. It was first revealed to Good Lord Omar and is one of the great contributions to come from the Hidden Temple of the Happy Jesus.

 * POEE also recognizes the holy 23 (2+3=5) that is incorporated by Episkopos Dr. Mordecai Malignatius, KNS, into his Discordian sect, the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.

 * The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO FIVE. The Law of Fives is never wrong.  In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."

THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS (THE PENTABARF)
The PENTABARF was discovered by the hermit Apostle Zarathud in the Fifth Year of The Caterpillar. He found them carved in gilded stone, while building a sun deck for his cave, but their import was lost for they were written in a mysterious cypher. However, after 10 weeks & 11 hours of intensive scrutiny he discerned that the message could be read by standing on his head and viewing it upside down.

KNOW YE THIS O MAN OF FAITH!

 * I - There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess. There is no Erisian Movement but The Erisian Movement and it is The Erisian Movement. And every Golden Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm.

 * II - A Discordian Shall Always use the Official Discordian Document Numbering System.

 * III - A Discordian is Required during his early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday; this Devotive Ceremony to Remonstrate against the popular Paganisms of the Day: of Catholic Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism (no meat of Pork), of Hindic Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of animal), and of Discordians (no Hot Dog Buns).

 * IV - A Discordian shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns, for Such was the Solace of Our Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.

 * V - A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads. IT IS SO WRITTEN! SO BE IT. HAIL DISCORDIA! PROSECUTORS WILL BE TRANSGRESSICUTED.

 * The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't.
 * HBT; The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1

 * IT IS MY FIRM BELIEF THAT IT IS A MISTAKE TO HOLD FIRM BELIEFS.

THE CURSE OF GREYFACE

 * In the year 1166 B.C., a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface, got it into his head that the universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. "Look at all that order about you," he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it. It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that particular time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the DISORDER around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously than they took life itself and were not unknown even to destroy other living beings whose ways of life differed from their own. The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now. It is called THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.

THE CURSE OF GREYFACE AND THE INTRODUCTION OF NEGATIVISM

 * To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder.

 * The Curse of Greyface included the division of life into order/disorder as the essential positive/negative polarity, instead of building a game foundation with creative/destructive as the essential positive/negative. He has thereby caused man to endure the destructive aspects of order and has prevented man from effectively participating in the creative uses of disorder. Civilization reflects this unfortunate division.

 * POEE proclaims that the other division is preferable, and we work toward the proposition that creative disorder, like creative order, is possible and desirable; and that destructive order, like destructive disorder, is unnecessary and undesirable.

The Parable Of The Bitter Tea

 * FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT by Rev. Dr. Hypocrates Magoun, P.P. POEE PRIEST, Okinawa Cabal When Hypoc was through meditating with St. Gulik, he went there into the kitchen where he busied himself with preparing the feast and in his endeavor, he found that there was some old tea in a pan left standing from the night before, when he had, in his weakness, forgot about its making and had let it sit steeping for 24 hours. It was dark and murky and it was Hypoc's intention to use this old tea by diluting it with water. And again in his weakness, chose without further consideration and plunged into the physical labor of the preparations. It was then when deeply immersed in the pleasure of that trip, he had a sudden loud clear voice in his head, saying: "It is bitter tea that involves you so." Hypoc heard the voice, but the struggle inside intensified, and the pattern, previously established with the physical laboring and the muscle messages coordinated and unified or perhaps coded, continued to exert their influence and Hypoc succumbed to the pressure and he denied the voice. And again he plunged into the physical orgy and completed the task, and Lo! As the voice had predicted, the tea was bitter.

The Golden Secret

 * NONSENSE AS SALVATION The human race will begin solving its problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously. To that end, POEE proposes the countergame of NONSENSE AS SALVATION. Salvation from an ugly and barbarous existence that is the result of taking order so seriously and so seriously fearing contrary orders and disorder, that GAMES are taken as more important than LIFE; rather than taking LIFE AS THE ART OF PLAYING GAMES. To this end, we propose that man develop his innate love for disorder, and play with The Goddess Eris. And know that it is a joyful play, and that thereby CAN BE REVOKED THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.

 * If you can master nonsense as well as you have already learned to master sense, then each will expose the other for what it is: absurdity. From that moment of illumination, a man begins to be free regardless of his surroundings. He becomes free to play order games and change them at will. He becomes free to play disorder games just for the hell of it. He becomes free to play neither or both. And as the master of his own games, he plays without fear, and therefore without frustration, and therefore with good will in his soul and love in his being.

 * And when men become free then mankind will be free.  May you be free of The Curse of Greyface. May the Goddess put twinkles in your eyes. May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child.  Hail Eris.

Official POPE Card

 * THE BEARER OF THIS CARD IS A GENUINE AND AUTHORIZED ~ POPE ~ So please Treat Him Right GOOD FOREVER Genuine and authorized by The House of Apostles of ERIS Every man, woman and child on this Earth is a genuine and authorized Pope -Reproduce and distribute these cards freely- POEE Head Temple, San Francisco A =POPE= is someone who is not under the authority of the authorities.
 * External Link to scan of Official POPE Card

THE SACRED CHAO

 * THE SACRED CHAO is the key to illumination. Devised by the Apostle Hung Mung in ancient China, it was modified and popularized by the Taoists and is sometimes called the YIN-YANG. The Sacred Chao is not the Yin-Yang of the Taoists. It is the HODGE-PODGE of the Erisians. And, instead of a Podge spot on the Hodge side, it has a PENTAGON which symbolizes the ANERISTIC PRINCIPLE, and instead of a Hodge spot on the Podge side, it depicts the GOLDEN APPLE OF DISCORDIA to symbolize the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.
 * The Sacred Chao symbolizes absolutely everything anyone need ever know about absolutely anything, and more! It even symbolizes everything not worth knowing, depicted by the empty space surrounding the Hodge-Podge.

PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS

 * HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS. If you are not hot for philosophy, best just skip it.

 * The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Erisitic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made CONCEPTS and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making. With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept. We look through the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle. Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other. DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE. The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

 * The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

 * Reality is the original Rorschach.

Zaruthud's Enlightenment

 * Before he became a hermit, Zaruthud was a young priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted the Sacred Chao while She was contently grazing. "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile. What is your Purpose in life, anyway?" Munching the tasty grass, the Sacred Chao replied "MU". Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because no one could understand Chinese.

THUS ENDS PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA

 * This being the 4th Edition, March 1970, San Francisco; a revision of the 3rd Edition of 500 copies, whomped together in Tampa 1969; which revised the 2nd Edition of 100 copies from Los Angeles 1969; which was a revision of "PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA or HOW THE WEST WAS LOST" published in New Orleans in 1965 in five copies, which were mostly lost.

 * If you think the PRINCIPIA is just a ha-ha, then go read it again.

 * Ⓚ ALL RITES REVERSED - Reprint what you like

 * If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
 * Introduction to 5th Edition by Kerry Thornley, Discordian Society Co-founder

Other

 * Phrases posted at various points in the publication.

 * Remember: KING KONG Died for your Sins

 * Momomoto, famous Japanese, can swallow his nose.

 * Bullshit makes the flowers grow & that's beautiful.

 * One day, I came upon a man urinating in a bus station. When I confronted him about his action, he turned to me, without stopping, and said:
 * "Keep in mind that the universe is in constant flux, nothing that occurs one moment has any relevance to anything else. Everything you believe, feel, or think is based on the false assumption that truth exists. Thus, you are free to do any action which brings you pleasure. That humanity feels restricted by morals is one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard."
 * So I beat the shit out of him and took his wallet.
 * From the Steven Jackson Games edition of the book.

THE LAST WORD

 * The foregoing document was revealed to Mal-2 by the Goddess Herself through many consultations with Her within his Pineal Gland. It is guaranteed to be the Word of Goddess. However, it is only fair to state that Goddess doesn't always say the same thing to each listener, and that other Episkoposes are sometimes told quite different things in their Revelations, which are also the Word of Goddess. Consequently, if you prefer a Discordian Sect other than POEE, then none of these Truths are binding, and it is a rotten shame that you have read all the way down to the very last word.
 * fnord

Introduction to the 5th edition

 * Kerry Thornley, Discordian Society Co-founder

 * Before I was a Discordian, I took life much too seriously. When you take life too seriously you start to wonder what the point of it all is. When you wonder what the point is in life, you fall into a trap of thinking there is one. When you think there is a point, you finally realize there is no point. And what point is there in living like that? Nowadays I skip the search for a point and find, instead, the punch lines.

title: Principia Discordia


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Black Elk

Nicholas Black Elk [Hehaka Sapa] (c. December 1863 – 17 August or 19 August 1950 [sources differ]) was a famous Wichasha Wakan (Medicine Man or Holy Man) and Heyoka of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He participated at about the age of twelve in the Battle of Little Big Horn of 1876, and was wounded in the massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890.

The Sacred Pipe (1953)

 * The Sacred Pipe : Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1953), as told to Joseph Epes Brown

 * Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.

 * All the things of the universe are joined with you who smoke the pipe — All send their voices to Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.

 * The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.

 * The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.

 * The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.'

 * Perhaps you have noticed that even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways.

 * [The Sun Dancers] also put rabbit skins on their arms and legs, for the rabbit represents humility, because he is quiet and soft and not self-asserting — a quality which we must all possess when we go to the center of the world.

 * This center which is here, but which we know is really everywhere, is ''Wakan-Tanka.'

 * It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.

 * Of all the created things or beings in the universe, it is the two-legged men alone, who if they purify and humiliate themselves, may become one with — or may know — Wakan-Tanka.

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

 * Black Elk Speaks : being the life story of a holy man of the Ogalala Sioux (1961), as told to John Neihardt

 * Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.
 * Ch. 17 : The First Cure

 * Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop.'''
 * Ch. 17 : The First Cure

 * When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm. … you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. … as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that heyokas have.

 * If the vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet; for such things are of the spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.

 * With visible breath I am walking. A voice I am sending as I walk. In a sacred manner I am walking. With visible tracks I am walking. In a sacred manner I walk.
 * Song of the White Bison Woman who brought the sacred pipe to men.

 * A long time ago my father told me what his father told him, that there was once a Lakota holy man, called Drinks Water, who dreamed what was to be; and this was long before the coming of the Wasichus. He dreamed that the four-leggeds were going back into the earth and that a strange race had woven a spider's web all around the Lakotas. And he said: "When this happens, you shall live in square gray houses, in a barren land, and beside those square gray houses you shall starve." They say he went back to Mother Earth soon after he saw this vision, and it was sorrow that killed him. You can look about you now and see that he meant these dirt-roofed houses we are living in, and that all the rest was true. Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
 * Wasichus was a term for the white men.

 * Then a Voice said: Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see, for there They are taking you.
 * Describing a childhood vision he had while very ill and near death.

 * Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

 * I saw ahead the rainbow flaming above the tepee of the Six Grandfathers, built and roofed with cloud and sewed with thongs of lightning; and underneath it were all the wings of the air and under them the animals and men. All these were rejoicing, and thunder was like happy laughter. As I rode in through the rainbow door, there were cheering voices from all over the universe, and I saw the Six Grandfathers sitting in a row, with their arms held toward me and their hands, palms out; and behind them in the cloud were faces thronging, without number, of the people yet to be.

 * A good nation I will make live. This the nation above has said. They have given me the power to make over.
 * Song of power he sang towards the end of a childhood vision

 * They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man , had brought me back to life. I knew it was the Grandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepee who had cured me; but I felt afraid to say so. My father gave Whirlwind Chaser the best horse he had for making me well, and many people came to look at me, and there was much talk about the great power of Whirlwind Chaser who had made me well all at once when I was almost the same as dead. Everybody was glad that I was living; but as I lay there thinking about the wonderful place where I had been and all that I had seen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me that everybody ought to know about it, but I was afraid to tell, because I knew that nobody would believe me, little as I was, for I was only nine years old. Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me. I am sure now that I was then too young to understand it all, and that I only felt it.'It was the pictures I remembered and the words that went with them; for nothing I have ever seen with my eyes was so clear and bright as what my vision showed me; and no words that I have ever heard with my ears were like the words I heard. I did not have to remember these things; they have remembered themselves all these years. It was as I grew older that the meanings came clearer and clearer out of the pictures and the words; and even now I know that more was shown to me than I can tell.

 * I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
 * Speaking of the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

 * Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you — the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wings of the air and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. The good road and the road of difficulties you have made to cross; and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things. Therefore, I am sending a voice, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, forgetting nothing you have made, the stars of the universe and the grasses of the earth.

 * To the center of the world you have taken me and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother — and there the spirit shapes of things, as they should be, you have shown to me and I have seen. At the center of this sacred hoop, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom. With tears running, O Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather — with running tears I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. A pitiful old man, you see me here, and I have fallen away and have done nothing. Here at the center of the world, where you took me when I was young and taught me; here, old, I stand, and the tree is withered, Grandfather, my Grandfather! Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!

 * In sorrow I am sending a feeble voice, O Six Powers of the World. Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!'''

 * He was the chief of all the horses; and when he snorted, it was a flash of lightning and his eyes were like the sunset star.

 * And as I looked ahead, the people changed into elks and bison and all four-footed beings and even into fowls, all walking in a sacred manner on the good red road together.

 * … behind me there were ghosts of people like a trailing fog as far as I could see - grandfathers of grandfathers and grandmothers of grandmothers without number.

 * Flames were rising from the waters and in the flames a blue man lived.

 * Then the bay horse spoke to me again and said: "See how your horses all come dancing!" I looked, and there were horses, horses everywhere — a whole skyfull of horses dancing around me.

 * My bay had lightning stripes all over him and his mane was cloud. And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.

 * Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way. It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt. Until he was killed at the Soldiers' Town on White River, he was wounded only twice, once by accident and both times by some one of his own people when he was not expecting trouble and was not thinking; never by an enemy. He was fifteen years old when he was wounded by accident; and the other time was when he was a young man and another man was jealous of him because the man's wife liked Crazy Horse. They used to say that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason that no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out. I think it was only the power of his great vision that made him great.

 * "Behold" he said, "all the wings of the air shall come to you, and they and the winds and the stars shall be like relatives."

 * All around the circle, feeding on the green, green grass were fat and happy horses...

 * I did not see anything to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [Whites] 'did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.
 * After joining the Wild West Show in 1886 and traveling to Chicago and New York to learn from the Whites, citing Neihardt in Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)

Quotes about Black Elk

 * Black Elk and Lame Deer were Heyoka which does not mean that you literally say and do things backwards in a humorous manner but whose spirit helpers are the powerful thunderbeings. Lame Deer was the last true Heyoka. If you look at this world most things flow in a clockwise cycle but you also have that small element in life that goes the opposite direction. There are things that Black Elk and Lame Deer did and said things in a way to divert the tensions at that time when the pipe way was under attack.
 * Zintkala Oyate, as quoted in Heyoka magazine (6 December 2006)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Black Elk


text:
O. Henry

O. Henry (11 September 1862 – 5 June 1910) was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, a short-story writer famous for his use of twist endings.

Quotes

 * What is the world at its best but a little round field of the moving pictures with two walking together in it?
 * "The Vitagraphoscope" in Cabbages and Kings (1904)

 * Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's.
 * "The Country of Elusion" in The Trimmed Lamp (1907)

 * Turn up the lights — I don't want to go home in the dark.
 * Last words, quoting a 1907 song by Harry Williams. (5 June 1910) Quoted in O. Henry Biography, ch. 9, Charles Alphonso Smith (1916).

 * A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
 * “Makes the Whole World Kin,” Sixes and Sevens (1911)

 * A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
 * "A Ruler of Men" Rolling Stones (1913)

 * Take it from me — he's got the goods.
 * "The Unprofitable Servant"

The Four Million (1906)

 * Full text online

 * Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen — the census taker — and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million."
 * Preface

 * One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
 * "The Gift of the Magi" - Full text online

 * There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
 * "The Gift of the Magi"

 * The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
 * "The Gift of the Magi"

 * If man knew how women pass the time when they are alone, they'd never marry.
 * "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog"

 * The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son—when he started back home.
 * "The Green Door"

The Trimmed Lamp (1907)

 * The Trimmed Lamp And Other Stories of the Four Million - Full text online

 * Whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.
 * "The Last Leaf"

 * The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.
 * "The Last Leaf"

 * Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.
 * "The Country of Elusion"

The Voice of the City (1908)

 * The Voice of the City : Further Stories of the Four Million - Full text online

 * There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference.
 * "The Plutonian Fire"

 * In time truth and science and nature will adapt themselves to art. Things will happen logically, and the villain be discomfited instead of being elected to the board of directors. But in the meantime fiction must not only be divorced from fact, but must pay alimony and be awarded custody of the press despatches.
 * "The Plutonian Fire"

 * He wrote love stories, a thing I have always kept free from, holding the belief that the well-known and popular sentiment is not properly matter for publication, but something to be privately handled by the alienist and the florist.
 * "The Plutonian Fire"

 * I hated Kerner, and one day I met him and we became friends. He was young and gloriously melancholy because his spirits were so high and life had so much in store for him. Yes, he was almost riotously sad. That was his youth. When a man begins to be hilarious in a sorrowful way you can bet a million that he is dyeing his hair.
 * "The Fool-Killer"

 * Kerner's father was worth a couple of millions. He was willing to stand for art, but he drew the line at the factory girl. So Kerner disinherited his father and walked out to a cheap studio and lived on sausages for breakfast and on Farroni for dinner.
 * "The Fool-Killer"

 * I know you. I have heard of you all my life. I know now what a scourge you have been to your country. Instead of killing fools you have been murdering the youth and genius that are necessary to make a people live and grow great. You are a fool yourself, Holmes; you began killing off the brightest and best of our countrymen three generations ago, when the old and obsolete standards of society and honor and orthodoxy were narrow and bigoted. You proved that when you put your murderous mark upon my friend Kerner — the wisest chap I ever knew in my life.
 * "The Fool-Killer"

 * Broadway — the great sluice that washes out the dust of the gold-mines of Gotham.
 * "From Each According to His Ability"

The Gentle Grafter (1908)

 * Full text online

 * It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.
 * "The Octopus Marooned"

 * Busy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wallpaper.
 * "The Ethics of Pig"

 * She is pale but affectionate, clinging to his arm — always clinging to his arm. Any one can see that she is a peach and of the cling variety.
 * "A Tempered Wind"

 * If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, called New York.
 * "A Tempered Wind"

Roads of Destiny (1909)

 * Full text online

 * History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women.
 * "Next to Reading Matter"

 * You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a women's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.
 * "The Fourth in Salvador"

Strictly Business (1910)

 * Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million - Full text online

 * She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).
 * "A Ramble in Aphasia"

 * A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience.
 * "The Gold that Glittered"

 * East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State.
 * "A Municipal Report"

 * Take of London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts, gas leaks 20 parts, dewdrops gathered in a brickyard at sunrise 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. Mix. The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle.
 * "A Municipal Report"

Whirligigs (1910)

 * Full text online

 * It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
 * "A Little Local Color"

 * Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist; if he love, the object shall know it. During a lifetime he may conceal it through stress of expediency and honour, but it shall bubble from his dying lips, though it disrupt a neighbourhood. It is known, however, that most men do not wait so long to disclose their passion. In the case of Lorison, his particular ethics positively forbade him to declare his sentiments, but he must needs dally with the subject, and woo by innuendo at least.
 * "Blind Man's Holiday"

 * Bolivar cannot carry double
 * "The Roads We Take"

 * It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.
 * "The Roads We Take"

title: O. Henry


text:
Emperor Norton

Joshua Abraham Norton (also known as Emperor Norton) (4 February 1818 – 8 January 1880) was an eccentric resident of San Francisco who proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States.

Quotes

 * At the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the last nine years and ten months past of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States; and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in Musical Hall, of this city, on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.
 * Proclamation in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (17 September 1859)

 * Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree.
 * "Imperial Decree" dated 12th Day of August 1869, published in The San Francisco Herald (13 August 1869)

 * The following is decreed and ordered to be carried into execution as soon as convenient: I. That a suspension bridge be built from Oakland Point to Goat Island, and then to Telegraph Hill; provided such bridge can be built without injury to the navigable waters of the Bay of San Francisco. II. That the Central Pacific Railroad Company be granted franchises to lay down tracks and run cars from Telegraph Hill and along the city front to Mission Bay. III. That all deeds by the Washington Government since the establishment of our Empire are hereby decreed null and void unless our Imperial signature is first obtained thereto.
 * Proclamation published in the Pacific Appeal (23 March 1872)

Quotes about Norton

 * Last night at quarter past eight o'clock, Joshua Norton, universally known — and known almost only — as Emperor Norton, died suddenly in this city. The similar death of the first citizen of San Francisco, or the highest municipal officer of the city, would not have caused so general a sensation as that of the harmless old man whose monomania never distorted at least a heart which was wholesome, and hardly affected a mind which had once been of the shrewdest, other than in the method of his sovereignty of the United States and Protectorate of Mexico.
 * "Emperor Norton; He Dies Suddenly on California Street Last Night" article in The San Francisco Morning Call, (9 January 1880)

 * On the reeking pavement, in the darkness of a moonless night under the dripping rain, and surrounded by a hastily gathered crowd of wondering strangers, Norton I, by the grace of God, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life. Other sovereigns have died with no more of kindly care — other sovereigns have died as they have lived with all the pomp of earthly majesty, but death having touched them, Norton I rises up the exact peer of the haughtiest King or Kaiser that ever wore a crown. Perhaps he will rise more than the peer of most of them. He had a better claim to kindly consideration than that his lot "forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Through his harmless proclamations can always be traced an innate gentleness of heat, a desire to effect uses and a courtesy, the possession of which would materially improve the bitterful living princes whose names will naturally suggest themselves.
 * "Emperor Norton; He Dies Suddenly on California Street Last Night" article in The San Francisco Morning Call, (9 January 1880)

 * The heritage of honor and integrity that he had handed down while in his affluence, was never squandered nor dissipated, and so he bore the respect and goodwill of the best of his people to the end. The jokes played upon him had been harmless, and the merriment that he sometimes excited had been without the bitter venom of ridicule. If sincere, his was a career of long heroic sacrifice; if an imposter, he must be ranked as one of the most extraordinary of that class who has yet lived. He left no successor. The emoluments of an unattractive throne and an empty royalty were not alluring; there was none strong enough to follow him; and finally the world was entering upon an epoch of materialism in which there is no provision for such a monarch. From that strange stage through the doors of oblivion, thus passes forever Norton I, Emperor of the United States, and Protector of Mexico. L'Empereur est mort.
 * Norton I : Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico (Joshua A. Norton, 1819-1880) (1923) by Ernest Cowan

 * Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Hermann Hesse. Only a handful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton.
 * Principia Discordia

 * His madness keeps him sane.
 * Delirium in "Three Septembers and a January", The Sandman #31, by Neil Gaiman

 * They say that the world rests on the backs of 36 living saints — 36 unselfish men and women. Because of them the world continues to exist. They are the secret kings and queens of this world. ... I've met a lot of kings, and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best.
 * Death, in "Three Septembers and a January", The Sandman #31, by Neil Gaiman

 * Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered and encouraged? Where else would even the people of the streets have respected the poor soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his small assessments? Where else would he have been suffered to attend and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges? Where else, in God's green earth, have taken his pick of restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scatheless?
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, in The Wrecker (1892)

 * At a comparatively early date, I saw him in the exercise of his public functions. His Majesty entered the office — a portly, rather flabby man, with the face of a gentleman, rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd by the great sabre at his side and the peacock's feather in his hat. "I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are somewhat in arrear of taxes," he said, with old-fashioned, stately courtesy. "Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?" asked Jim; and when the figure was named (it was generally two or three dollars), paid upon the nail and offered a bonus in the shape of Thirteen Star. "I am always delighted to patronise native industries," said Norton the First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is my favourite city."
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, in The Wrecker (1892)

title: Emperor Norton


text:
Emily Dickinson

 (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Virtually unknown in her lifetime, Dickinson has come to be regarded as one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century. Although she wrote (at latest count), only a few of them were published in her lifetime, all anonymously, and some perhaps without her knowledge.

Quotes

 * God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts. Yet I am not afraid, for I try to be right and good; and He knows every one of my struggles.
 * Letter to Abiah Root (29 January 1850)

 * My friends are my "estate." Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them.
 * Letter to Samuel Bowles (August 1858 or 1859), letter #193 of The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward

 * If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
 * Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870), letter #342a of The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward, page 474

 * To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.
 * The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward. Quoted in "The Conscious Self in Emily Dickinson's Poetry" by Charles A. Anderson: American Literature, Vol. 31, No. 3 (November 1959), pp. 290-308.

 * We turn not older with years, but newer every day.
 * Letter to Frances and Louise Norcross, late 1872.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

 * Edited by Thomas H. Johnson

 * Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires a sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of Victory  As he defeated — dying — On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!
 * 67: Success is counted sweetest

 * "Faith" is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see — But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency.
 * 185: "Faith" is a fine invention

That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all — ''' And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm —
 * '''"Hope" is the thing with feathers —
 * 254: "Hope" is the thing with feathers —

Are you — Nobody — Too?'''
 * '''I'm Nobody! Who are you?

 * 288: I'm Nobody! Who are you?

How public — like a Frog — To tell one's name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!'''
 * '''How dreary — to be — Somebody!

 * 288: I'm Nobody! Who are you?; In some editions "June" has been altered to "day".

 * The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more —
 * 303: The Soul selects her own Society --

 * 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—
 * 324: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —

 * God preaches, a noted Clergyman — And the sermon is never long, So instead of getting to Heaven, at last— I'm going, all along.
 * 324: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —

 * 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
 * 441: This is my letter to the World

 * I died for Beauty — but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb, When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room —  He questioned softly "Why I failed"? "For Beauty," I replied. "And I — for Truth, — Themself are One — We Brethren, are", He said —
 * 449: I died for Beauty —

If One wake at Morn — If One wake at Midnight — better — Dreaming — of the Dawn — '''
 * '''Dreams — are well — but Waking's better,

 * 450: Dreams — are well — but Waking's better

A few — behold thee — Smile — and alter — and prattle — and die — Bliss — were an Oddity — without thee — Nicknamed by God — Eternity — '''
 * '''Love — thou art Veiled —

 * 453: Love — thou art high —

 * I heard a Fly buzz — when I died — The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air — Between the Heaves of Storm —
 * 465: I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —

 * Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality. We slowly drove — He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility —
 * 712: Because I could not stop for Death —

 * Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity —

 * 712: Because I could not stop for Death —

 * My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun — In Corners — till a Day The Owner passed — identified — And carried Me away — And now We roam in Sovereign Woods — And now We hunt the Doe — And every time I speak for Him — The Mountains straight reply —
 * 754: My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun —

 * We outgrow love, like other things And put it in the Drawer — Till it an Antique fashion shows — Like Costumes Grandsires wore.
 * 887: We outgrow love, like other things

 * A Grave — is a restricted Breadth — Yet ampler than the Sun — And all the Seas He populates And lands he looks upon To Him who on its small Repose Bestows a single Friend — Circumference without Relief — Or Estimate — or End
 * 943: A Coffin — is a small Domain,

 * To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights, What must the Midnights — be!
 * 1095: To Whom the Mornings stand for Nights,

 * A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came, A Wisdom, without Face, or Name, A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home And so the Night became.
 * 1104: The Crickets sang

Success in Circuit lies''' Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise '''As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind —'''
 * '''Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
 * 1129: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —

 * Could Hope inspect her Basis Her Craft were done — Has a fictitious Charter Or it has none — Balked in the vastest instance But to renew — Felled but by one assassin — Prosperity —
 * 1283: Could Hope inspect her Basis

 * Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone — A Whip so small you could not see it I've known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell.  Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried — Singing unto the Stone Of which it died —  Shame need not crouch In such an Earth as Ours — Shame — stand erect — The Universe is yours.
 * 1304: Not with a Club, the Heart is broken

Is wholesome even for the King.
 * A little Madness in the Spring
 * 1333: A little Madness in the Spring

 * More than the Grave is closed to me — The Grave and that Eternity To which the Grave adheres — I cling to nowhere till I fall — The Crash of nothing, yet of all — How similar appears —
 * 1503: More than the Grave is closed to me —

 * If Aims impel these Astral Ones The ones allowed to know Know that which makes them as forgot As Dawn forgets them — now
 * 1528: The Moon upon her fluent Route

 * Who has not found the Heaven — below — Will fail of it above —
 * 1544: Who has not found the Heaven — below —

 * I took one Draught of Life — I'll tell you what I paid — Precisely an existence — The market price, they said.
 * 1725: I took one Draught of Life —

Collected Poems (1993)

 * Fall River Press edition

 * Glee! the great storm is over! Four have recovered the land; Forty gone down together Into the boiling sand. Ring, for the scant salvation! Toll, for the bonnie souls,— Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, Spinning upon the shoals!  How they will tell the shipwreck When winter shakes the door, Till the children ask, “But the forty? Did they come back no more?”  Then a silence suffuses the story,	 And a softness the teller's eye; And the children no further question, And only the waves reply.
 * Life, p. 5

 * If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;	 If I can ease one life the aching,	 Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again,	 I shall not live in vain.
 * Life, p. 6

 * Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ’T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain.
 * Life, p. 9

 * I never hear the word “escape” Without a quicker blood, A sudden expectation, A flying attitude. I never hear of prisons broad By soldiers battered down, But I tug childish at my bars,— Only to fail again!
 * Life, p. 22

 * Surgeons must be very careful	 When they take the knife!	 Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit,—Life!
 * Life, p. 25

 * It tossed and tossed,— A little brig I knew,— O'ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn. It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.  Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.
 * Life, p. 30

 * I took my power in my hand And went against the world; ’T was not so much as David had, But I was twice as bold. I aimed my pebble, but myself Was all the one that fell. Was it Goliath was too large, Or only I too small?
 * Life, p. 33

 * Mine enemy is growing old,— I have at last revenge. The palate of the hate departs;	 If any would avenge,— Let him be quick, the viand flits, It is a faded meat. Anger as soon as fed is dead; ’T is starving makes it fat.
 * Life, p. 38

 * It ’s such a little thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of these We men and women die!
 * Life, p. 50

 * Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise. Three times, ’t is said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abode Where hope and he part company,— For he is grasped of God. The Maker’s cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.
 * Life, p. 50

 * Who has not found the heaven below Will fail of it above. God’s residence is next to mine, His furniture is love.
 * Life, p. 54

 * Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Too sullied for the hell	 To which the law entitled him. As nature’s curtain fell The one who bore him tottered in, For this was woman’s son. “’T was all I had,” she stricken gasped; Oh, what a livid boon!
 * p. 56. Life.

 * Fate slew him, but he did not drop; She felled—he did not fall— Impaled him on her fiercest stakes— He neutralized them all. She stung him, sapped his firm advance, But, when her worst was done, And he, unmoved, regarded her, Acknowledged him a man.
 * Life, p. 60

 * It might be easier To fail with land in sight, Than gain my blue peninsula To perish of delight.
 * Life, p. 69

 * How happy is the little stone	 That rambles in the road alone, And does n't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on;	 And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.
 * Nature, p. 97

 * New feet within my garden go,	 New fingers stir the sod; A troubadour upon the elm Betrays the solitude. New children play upon the green, New weary sleep below; And still the pensive spring returns, And still the punctual snow!
 * Nature, p. 108

 * The pedigree of honey	 Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.
 * Nature, p. 110

 * The grass so little has to do,— A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain, And stir all day to pretty tunes The breezes fetch along, And hold the sunshine in its lap And bow to everything;  And thread the dews all night, like pearls, And make itself so fine,- A duchess were too common For such a noticing.  And even when it dies, to pass In odors so divine, As lowly spices gone to sleep, Or amulets of pine.  And then to dwell in sovereign barns, And dream the days away,— The grass so little has to do, I wish I were a hay!
 * Nature, p. 112

 * Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn Indicative that suns go down; The notice to the startled grass	 That darkness is about to pass.
 * Nature, p. 118

 * It makes no difference abroad, The seasons fit the same, The mornings blossom into noons, And split their pods of flame. Wild-flowers kindle in the woods, The brooks brag all the day; No blackbird bates his jargoning For passing Calvary.  Auto-da-fé and judgment Are nothing to the bee; His separation from his rose To him seems misery.
 * Nature, p. 120

 * Love is anterior to life, Posterior to death, Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath.
 * Love, p. 167

 * There is a word Which bears a sword Can pierce an armed man. It hurls its barbed syllables,— At once is mute again. But where it fell The saved will tell On patriotic day, Some epauletted brother Gave his breath away. Wherever runs the breathless sun, Wherever roams the day, There is its noiseless onset, There is its victory! Behold the keenest marksman! The most accomplished shot! Time's sublimest target Is a soul “forgot”!
 * Love, p. 170

 * Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you're lagging, I may remember him!
 * Love, p. 172

 * I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea;	 Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 188

 * I reason, earth is short, And anguish absolute. And many hurt; But what of that? I reason, we could die: The best vitality Cannot excel decay; But what of that?  I reason that in heaven Somehow, it will be even, Some new equation given; But what of that?
 * Time and Eternity, p. 192

 * No rack can torture me, My soul 's at liberty. Behind this mortal bone There knits a bolder one You cannot prick with saw, Nor rend with scymitar. Two bodies therefore be; Bind one, and one will flee.  The eagle of his nest No easier divest And gain the sky, Than mayest thou,  Except thyself may be Thine enemy; Captivity is consciousness, So's liberty.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 198

 * A death-blow is a life-blow to some Who, till they died, did not alive become; Who, had they lived, had died, but when They died, vitality begun.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 204

 * Our journey had advanced; Our feet were almost come To that odd fork in Being's road, Eternity by term. Our pace took sudden awe, Our feet reluctant led. Before were cities, but between, The forest of the dead.  Retreat was out of hope,— Behind, a sealed route, Eternity's white flag before, And God at every gate.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 213

 * That such have died enables us The tranquiller to die; That such have lived, certificate For immortality.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 228

 * The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear; Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. And then, that we have followed them We more than half suspect, So intimate have we become With their dear retrospect.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 229

 * Bless God, he went as soldiers, His musket on his breast; Grant, God, he charge the bravest Of all the martial blest. Please God, might I behold him In epauletted white, I should not fear the foe then, I should not fear the fight.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 234

 * Immortal is an ample word When what we need is by, But when it leaves us for a time, ’T is a necessity. Of heaven above the firmest proof We fundamental know, Except for its marauding hand, It had been heaven below.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 234

 * So proud she was to die It made us all ashamed That what we cherished, so unknown To her desire seemed. So satisfied to go Where none of us should be, Immediately, that anguish stooped Almost to jealousy.
 * Time and Eternity, p. 240

 * Fame is a fickle food	 Upon a shifting plate, Whose table once a Guest, but not The second time, is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect, And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn; Men eat of it and die.
 * The Single Hound, p. 257

 * The blunder is to estimate,— “Eternity is Then,” We say, as of a station. Meanwhile he is so near, He joins me in my ramble, Divides abode with me, No friend have I that so persists As this Eternity.
 * The Single Hound, p. 261

 * There is a solitude of space,	 A solitude of sea,	 A solitude of death, but these Society shall be, Compared with that profounder site, That polar privacy, A Soul admitted to Itself: Finite Infinity.
 * The Single Hound, p. 265

 * Nature is what we see, The Hill, the Afternoon— Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee, Nay—Nature is Heaven. Nature is what we hear, The Bobolink, the Sea— Thunder, the Cricket— Nay,—Nature is Harmony.  Nature is what we know But have no art to say, So impotent our wisdom is To Her simplicity.
 * p. 268-269. The Single Hound.

 * Some Days retired from the rest In soft distinction lie,	 The Day that a companion came— Or was obliged to die.
 * The Single Hound, p. 271

 * The sweets of Pillage can be known To no one but the Thief, Compassion for Integrity Is his divinest Grief.
 * The Single Hound, p. 299

 * The face we choose to miss, Be it but for a day—	 As absent as a hundred years When it has rode away.
 * The Single Hound, p. 312

Misattributed

 * Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.
 * Quoted on the web sans source. Not in the complete Poems. A 2006 self-help book attributes it verbatim to Dave Sim (see below) sans source. A 2009 reprint of Poems: Second Series mentions it in the introduction sans source (thus probably taking it from the unsourced web quote). No earlier attributions found.
 * Compare to a quote sourced to Dave Sim: "Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon." (Cerebus #65, 1984)

Quotes about Dickinson

 * In English, you know who I love, and have translated? Emily Dickinson...I translated Dickinson. It came out in the Nuevo Diario a long time ago, in the beginning of the 1980s. I love her very much.
 * Claribel Alegría Interview (2017)

 * “No approximate words in a poem,” Dickinson says
 * Julia Alvarez interview (2019)

 * When people talk about American literature, they really mean Hemingway, Faulkner and Poe and when they do include women it's Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. To decide to take that on and say, 'I will speak and will be heard'-that takes a lot of guts.
 * 1988 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)

 * (What is it about Emily Dickinson that moves you?) Her use of language, certainly. Her solitude, as well, and the style of that solitude. There is something very moving and in the best sense funny. She isn't solemn.
 * 1984 interview in Conversations with James Baldwin edited by Louis H. Pratt and Fred L. Standley (1989)

 * the contributions of people whom we may now identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are integral and central to how we conceptualize our national history. Without the work of social activists, thinkers, writers, and artists such as We'Wha, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Martha "Calamity" Jane Cannary Burke, Edith Guerrier, Countee Cullen, Ethel Waters, Bayard Rustin, Roy Cohn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cherrie Moraga, and Lily Tomlin, we would not have the country that we have today.
 * Michael Bronski A Queer History of the United States (2011)

 * There is another thing about my childhood that is interesting now, in the light of later happenings. I might have said, with Emily Dickinson: "I never saw a moor,/I never saw the sea;/Yet know I how the heather looks,/And what a wave must be." For I never saw the ocean until I went from college to the marine laboratories at Woods Hole, on Cape Cod. Yet as a child I was fascinated by the thought of it. I dreamed about it and wondered what it would look like.
 * Rachel Carson 1954 speech included in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1998)

 * Friends dislike being apart. Separation, says Emily Dickinson, is all the Hell we need. Each shared moment is precious. And the only ones who can remember the hour of loneliness are those who survive it.
 * Rosario Castellanos, "In Praise of Friendship" (1964) in Another Way to Be: Selected Works of Rosario Castellanos

 * There’s no higher entitlement than thinking that you should live forever, when part of the beauty of nature is that even the stars die. That's what Emily Dickinson said: 'That it will never come again/is what makes life so sweet.' I believe that.
 * Ann Druyan Interview with Astronomy Magazine (2020)

 * Her poetry is the diary or autobiography — though few diaries or autobiographies compare with it for intentional and, especially, unintentional truth — of an acute psychologist, a wonderful rhetorician, and one of the most individual writers who ever lived, one of those best able to express experience at its most nearly absolute.
 * Randall Jarrell, "The Year in Poetry," Harper's (October 1955); republished in Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980) [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981, ISBN 0-374-51668-5 ], p. 244

 * One of my favorite quotations from Emily Dickinson is: "Tell truth / But tell it slant."
 * Judith Ortiz Cofer, interview (2000) in A Poet's Truth: Conversations with Latino/Latina Poets

 * I'm from the Emily Dickinson and Flannery O'Connor school of writing, where you write about your Amherst backyard or about a farm in Milledgevilk, and then you're actually writing about everything it means to be human.
 * Judith Ortiz Cofer, interview (2000) in A Poet's Truth: Conversations with Latino/Latina Poets

 * Feminist literary critics have shown how in the 19th century women writers began to acknowledge women as their muses and their role models...Elizabeth Barrett Browning admired the work of George Sand and Mme. de Staël, while her work, in its turn, was an inspiration to Emily Dickinson...The list could be indefinitely extended to show the almost desperate search of writing women for authoritative female predecessors.
 * Gerda Lerner The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993)

 * When I visited Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst,/a lively plump robin was sitting on her step,/right under the second-story window she would have/stared out of.
 * Naomi Shihab Nye Voices in the Air (2018)

 * Anger has always played a role in poetry...There is much anger in Emily Dickinson, lightly disguised as mockery. “The Bible is an antique volume / Written by faded men,” she proclaims.
 * Alicia Ostriker Interview

 * Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening. To come to her directly from Dante, Spenser, Blake, and Baudelaire is to find her sadomasochism obvious and flagrant. Birds, bees, and amputated hands are the dizzy stuff of this poetry. Dickinson is like the homosexual cultist draping himself in black leather and chains to bring the idea of masculinity into aggressive visibility.
 * Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae (1990) p. 624

 * Emily Dickinson is the female Sade, and her poems are the prison dreams of a self-incarcerated, sadmomasochistic imaginist. When she is rescued from American Studies departments and juxtaposed with Dante and Baudelaire, her barbarities and diabolical acts of will become glaringly apparent. Dickinson inherits through Blake the rape cycle of The Faerie Queene. Blake and Spenser are her allies in helping pagan Coleridge defeat Protestant Wordsworth.
 * Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae (1990) p. 624

 * Richard Chase declares, "No great poet has written so much bad verse as Emily Dickinson." He blames the Victorian cult of little women for the fact that "two thirds of her work" is seriously flawed: "Her coy and oddly childish poems of nature and female friendship are products of a time when one of the careers open to women was perpetual childhood." Dickinson's sentimental feminine poems remain neglected by embarrassed scholars. I would maintain, however, that her poetry is a closed system of sexual reference and that the mawkish poems are designed to dovetail with those of violence and suffering.
 * Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae (1990) p. 637

 * I have a notion that genius knows itself; that Dickinson chose her seclusion, knowing she was exceptional and knowing what she needed. It was, moreover, no hermetic retreat, but a seclusion which included a wide range of people, of reading and correspondence. Her sister Vinnie said, "Emily is always looking for the rewarding person." And she found, at various periods, both women and men: her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert, Amherst visitors and family friends such as Benjamin Newton, Charles Wadsworth, Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, and his wife; her friends Kate Anthon and Helen Hunt Jackson, the distant but significant figures of Elizabeth Barrett, the Brontës, George Eliot. But she carefully selected her society and controlled the disposal of her time. Not only the "gentlewomen in plush" of Amherst were excluded; Emerson visited next door but she did not go to meet him; she did not travel or receive routine visits; she avoided strangers. Given her vocation, she was neither eccentric nor quaint; she was determined to survive, to use her powers, to practice necessary economies.
 * Adrienne Rich On Lies, Secrets and Silence (1979)

 * Suppose Jonathan Edwards had been born a woman; suppose William James, for that matter, had been born a woman? (The invalid seclusion of his sister Alice is suggestive.) Even from men, New England took its psychic toll; many of its geniuses seemed peculiar in one way or another, particularly along the lines of social intercourse. Hawthorne, until he married, took his meals in his bedroom, apart from the family. Thoreau insisted on the values both of solitude and of geographical restriction, boasting that "I have traveled much in Concord." Emily Dickinson-viewed by her bemused contemporary Thomas Higginson as "partially cracked," by the twentieth century as fey or pathological-has increasingly struck me as a practical woman, exercising her gift as she had to, making choices.
 * Adrienne Rich On Lies, Secrets and Silence (1979)

 * She was always stirred by the existences of women like George Eliot or Elizabeth Barrett, who possessed strength of mind, articulateness, and energy. (She once characterized Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale as "holy"-one suspects she merely meant, "great.")
 * Adrienne Rich On Lies, Secrets and Silence (1979)

 * Emily Dickinson's strictness, sometimes almost a slang of strictness, speaks with an intellectually active, stimulated quick music.
 * Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

nine years what may be her finest book.
 * Emily Dickinson, whose unappeasable thirst for fame was itself unknown for years after her death, had to fight through her family-"Vesuvius at home"-until a miserable lawsuit and the theft of a manure pile interrupted the posthumous publication of her work, and postponed for forty-
 * Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

title: Emily Dickinson