Edgar Allan Poe Quotes (173 Quotes)


    The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.

    There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.


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

    In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past That holy dream- that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar- What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star.


    But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
    Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
    And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
    Didst glide away.

    The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?


    Eldorado Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old This knight so bold And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow 'Shadow,' said he, 'Where can it be This land of Eldorado' 'Over the mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,' The shade replied 'If you seek for Eldorado'

    It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.


    Glitter, and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express.


    Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

    If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

    The ecstasies above
    With thy burning measures suit-
    Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
    With the fervor of thy lute-
    Well may the stars be mute!


    It was many and many a year ago,
    In a kingdom by the sea,
    That a maiden there lived whom you may know
    By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
    And this maiden she lived with no other thought
    Than to love and be loved by me.

    A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.

    That holy dream- that holy dream,
    While all the world were chiding,
    Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
    A lonely spirit guiding.

    And so it lies happily,
    Bathing in many
    A dream of the truth
    And the beauty of Annie-
    Drowned in a bath
    Of the tresses of Annie.



    I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.


    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.


    There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

    I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.

    Our faith to one love- and one moon adore-
    The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.


    The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

    A gentleman with a pug nose is a contradiction in terms.

    And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
    With Indian Cupid down the holy river-
    Fair flowers, and fairy!



    In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
    Like Harmodious, the gallant and good,
    When he made at the tutelar shrine
    A libation of Tyranny's blood.


    I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

    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.

    The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.




    Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

    The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.


    If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own -- the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple -- a few plain words -- ''My Heart Laid Bare.'' But -- this little book must be true to its title.

    In spring of youth it was my lot
    To haunt of the wide world a spot
    The which I could not love the less-
    So lovely was the loneliness
    Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
    And the tall pines that towered around.

    I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.


    Related Authors


    T. S. Eliot - Maya Angelou - Lord Byron - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Horace - e. e. cummings - Ovid - Edgar Guest - Amy Lowell - A. E. Housman


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