Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

Written by Emily Brontë 1818–1848 · English poet & novelist, author of Wuthering Heights
Verified Free to reuse

These are the opening two lines of Emily Brontë’s poem “No Coward Soul Is Mine.” The wording is authentically hers — it matches her manuscript text (dated January 1846) word for word, including the punctuation. What is not reliable is the popular framing of it as her dying declaration: her sister Charlotte presented it posthumously as “the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote,” a claim scholars have since corrected.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere” Emily Brontë, "No Coward Soul Is Mine" (written January 1846)

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Emily Brontë — English poet and novelist. Theme: "No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Work
“No Coward Soul Is Mine”
Author
Emily Brontë (writing as “Ellis Bell”)
Written
January 1846 (autograph manuscript)
First published
Posthumously, c. 1850, in Charlotte Brontë’s selection of her sisters’ poems

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in thee!

The quoted line is the poem’s opening couplet, shown here with the second stanza for context.

Full poem at Wikisource

How we verified this

  • Emily’s autograph manuscript dates the poem to January 1846; it circulated only after her death, when Charlotte prefaced it “The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote” (Wikisource).
  • That “last lines” framing is inaccurate: it is a late poem but “not, as her sister Charlotte imagined, her last” (Poetry Archive).
  • The opening couplet is stable across the manuscript and every standard edition, so the exact wording is not in dispute (LitCharts).
Public domain

Emily Brontë died in 1848 and the poem entered print in the mid-19th century, so both the work and its text are long in the public domain in the United States (first published well before 1931).

Fact-check

The myths around a real quote

The words are genuinely Emily Brontë’s — the confusion is about when she wrote them and how they were introduced to the world.

Framed by Charlotte Brontë Editorial myth

Publishing the poem after Emily’s death, Charlotte prefaced it “The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote” (Wikisource). But the manuscript is dated to January 1846, nearly three years before Emily died — it is a late poem, “not, as her sister Charlotte imagined, her last” (Poetry Archive).

Circulated as “No Coward Soul Am I” Mis-wording

The poem is sometimes cited under the altered title “No Coward Soul Am I” — the form linked to the American poet Emily Dickinson, who admired it and had it read at her funeral (annebronte.org). Brontë’s own opening line reads “No coward soul is mine.”

The line itself is authentic Emily Brontë; only the “dying words” story attached to it is unreliable (Poetry Archive).

Context

Why it resonates

Written as Emily Brontë approached the end of her short life, “No Coward Soul Is Mine” is a defiant statement of inner faith — not the faith of church or creed, but a conviction that an “ever-present Deity” lives within the self and renders death powerless. It has become her most quoted poem.

Its afterlife is bound up with another great poet: Emily Dickinson kept the poem close, quoted it in letters, and it was reportedly read at her funeral in 1886 — one 19th-century recluse-poet’s tribute to another.

“No coward soul is mine, / No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.”

Explore

Filed under

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

Courage Resilience

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.

No Coward Soul Is Mine — full textWikisource

The complete poem with Charlotte's prefatory 'last lines' note.
No Coward Soul Is MinePoetry Foundation

Authoritative text of the poem.
No Coward Soul Is MinePoetry Archive

Notes that it is a later poem but not, as Charlotte believed, Emily's last.
Poem summary & analysisLitCharts

Line-by-line analysis and first-stanza text.
Emily Brontë's 'No Coward Soul Am I'annebronte.org

Manuscript date and the Emily Dickinson funeral connection.
The Brontës: No Coward SoulsEmily Dickinson Museum

Documents Dickinson quoting the poem and it being read at her funeral.

The true author

About Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë

1818–1848 · English poet and novelist

Emily Jane Brontë (1818–1848) was the middle of the three writing Brontë sisters and the author of the single novel Wuthering Heights (1847). She and her sisters first published under the male pen names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; Emily wrote as “Ellis Bell.” Fiercely private, she left a body of intense, metaphysical verse of which “No Coward Soul Is Mine” is the most celebrated. She died of tuberculosis in December 1848, aged 30.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Emily Brontë, “No Coward Soul Is Mine” (autograph manuscript dated January 1846; first published posthumously c. 1850 in Charlotte Brontë’s selection of her sisters’ poems). Text via The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë, Wikisource.

MLA (9th ed.)

Brontë, Emily. “No Coward Soul Is Mine.” 1846. The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë, Wikisource, c. 1850.

APA (7th ed.)

Brontë, E. (1850). No coward soul is mine. In The complete poems of Emily Brontë. Wikisource. (Original work written 1846)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/no-coward-soul-is-mine-no-trembler-in-the-worlds-storm

Copied