Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Poetry ·121 of 348
"Hope is the thing with feathers."
They never said that.
What people say
"Hope is the thing with feathers."
What was actually said
"Hope" is the thing with feathers — / That perches in the soul — Emily Dickinson — Poem 314 (c. 1861)
Why it stuck
Dickinson's manuscripts use quotation marks around "Hope" — she is pointing to the word itself as the thing with feathers. The paraphrase strips the meta-reference.
Her em-dashes and capitalisations were largely "corrected" in the 1890 Todd–Higginson edition. The quotes around "Hope" were kept.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.