Edgar Allan Poe Quotes on Man (9 Quotes)

I can-
Its fount is holier- more divine-
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

Men have called me mad but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligencewhether much that is gloriouswhether all that is profounddoes not spring from disease of thoughtfrom moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.

Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.