Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

Meaning of the quote

Fame is like food that can quickly change and disappear, just like a plate that is always moving. This means that being famous is not something that lasts forever, and it can be taken away from you very easily.

About Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an American poet who lived a reclusive life, but her poems have since been recognized as some of the most important in American literature. Though little-known during her lifetime, Dickinson’s unique poetic style and themes of death, immortality, and nature have made her a celebrated figure in American poetry.

More about the author

More quotes from Emily Dickinson

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

For love is immortality.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

My friends are my estate.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Beauty is not caused. It is.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Dying is a wild night and a new road.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Fortune befriends the bold.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

I dwell in possibility.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Where thou art, that is home.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Forever is composed of nows.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

The brain is wider than the sky.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

I’m nobody, who are you?

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

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

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

Emily Dickinson

American poet (1830-1886)