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Who really said it

Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul

Written by Emily Dickinson 1830–1886 · American poet
Verified Free to reuse

This is the genuine opening of Dickinson’s poem — catalogued J254 (Johnson) / Fr314 (Franklin) — copied into her hand-sewn Fascicle 13 around 1861 and first printed in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series in 1891. Her own text reads “Hope” in quotation marks and joins the two lines with a dash, not a hyphen.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul” is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — Emily Dickinson, poem J254/Fr314 (c.1861), first published in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series (1891)

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In context

Evoking the world of Emily Dickinson — American poet, Amherst, Massachusetts. Theme: "Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The poem & its first printing

Work
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
Catalogue
J254 (Johnson 1955) · Fr314 (Franklin 1998)
Written
c. 1861, in Fascicle 13 (manuscript, Houghton Library)
First published
1891, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series (Roberts Brothers, Boston)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —

Dickinson’s own wording keeps “Hope” inside quotation marks and uses her signature dashes; the widely shared “Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul” drops the quotes and flattens the dash to a hyphen.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers at the Poetry Foundation

How we know

Public domain

Emily Dickinson died in 1886 and this poem was first published in 1891 — well before the 1931 U.S. public-domain cutoff — so the text is firmly in the public domain in the United States.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

It’s really hers — but the wording gets tidied up

Unusually for a famous quotation, the attribution here is correct: these are Dickinson’s own words. What travels online is a lightly altered rendering.

Emily Dickinson mis-rendered

The popular form “Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul” drops the quotation marks Dickinson placed around “Hope” and replaces her line-ending dash with a hyphen; her text reads “Hope” is the thing with feathers — / That perches in the soul —, as shown at the Poetry Foundation.

The thought and the words are genuinely Dickinson’s — only her punctuation gets lost in transit, per the poem’s publication record.

Context

Why it endures

Written around 1861, the poem casts hope as a small bird that “perches in the soul” and sings on regardless of the storm, never asking anything in return. Its plain ballad meter and gentle metaphor have made it one of the most quoted consolations in English.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers — / That perches in the soul —

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Hope

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

“Hope” is the thing with featherspoetryfoundation.org

Full authenticated text of the poem.
Hope is the thing with feathers (254)poets.org

Academy of American Poets text and note.
“Hope” is the thing with feathersen.wikipedia.org

Composition, catalogue numbers and 1891 first-publication history.
Fascicle 13 manuscriptedickinson.org

Digital image of Dickinson’s holograph (J254 / Fr314).
Emily Dickinsonen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the poet.

The poet

About Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

1830–1886 · American poet, Amherst, Massachusetts

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet who lived much of her life in near-seclusion in Amherst, Massachusetts, and published almost nothing while alive. After her death her sister found some 1,800 poems, many stitched into hand-sewn booklets called fascicles. Her compressed lines, slant rhyme and idiosyncratic dashes — on display in this poem — made her, posthumously, one of the central figures of American poetry.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” (J254 / Fr314, c. 1861), in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, ed. T. W. Higginson and M. L. Todd (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1891).

MLA (9th ed.)

Dickinson, Emily. “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers.” Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, edited by T. W. Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, Roberts Brothers, 1891.

APA (7th ed.)

Dickinson, E. (1891). ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers. In T. W. Higginson & M. L. Todd (Eds.), Poems by Emily Dickinson, second series. Roberts Brothers.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hope is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-that-perches-in-the-soul/

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