Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The soul chooses its companions deliberately and excludes others to protect its independence and integrity.
In plain terms
Choose your friends carefully and close yourself off to those who do not belong.
What can you take from it?
Protect your inner circle to maintain your self-worth.

Where it applies

  • setting boundaries
  • friendship decisions
  • self-reflection

Putting it to work

  • learning to say no
  • curating social circles

Questions to consider

  • Who deserves a place in your inner circle?
  • When did you last shut a door?

Another view

It suggests isolation is necessary for integrity which may be extreme.

More from Emily Dickinson

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

    Permalink to quote #6

  2. 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-

    Permalink to quote #8

  3. I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - Too?

    Permalink to quote #5

Related quotes

  1. 'I'm not going to change my ways just to please you, or appease you'

    Dave MatthewsDave Matthews quote #6

  2. I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

    Charlotte BronteCharlotte Bronte quote #28

  3. Feeling... clamoured wildly. 'Oh, comply!' it said. '... soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you?…

    Charlotte BronteCharlotte Bronte quote #31