Edgar Allan Poe Quotes (173 Quotes)


    Of what in other worlds shall be - and given
    In beauty by our God, to those alone
    Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
    Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
    That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
    Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne
    With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
    Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

    The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
    Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
    bride.

    The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

    I was never really insane, except on occasions where my heart was touched.

    We rule the hearts of mightiest men- we rule
    With a despotic sway all giant minds.


    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.

    From childhood's hour I have not been As others were I have not seen As others saw I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone And all I loved, I loved alone. Then- in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life- was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold, From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by, From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.

    Soon Gothic ... hidden vices and perversions behind the veneer of virtue.

    It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

    In the silence of the night,
    How we shiver with affright
    At the melancholy menace of their tone!

    So when in tears
    The love of years
    Is wasted like the snow,
    And the fine fibrils of its life
    By the rude wrong of instant strife
    Are broken at a blow
    Within the heart
    Do springs upstart
    Of which it doth now know,
    And strange, sweet dreams,
    Like silent streams
    That from new fountains overflow,
    With the earlier tide
    Of rivers glide
    Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
    Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
    Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
    Sweet flowers, ere long,
    The rare and radiant flowers of song!

    years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute.

    Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

    Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page. They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day. Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then. Dreams are eraser dust and now I use a pen.


    As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.

    I did inherit
    Thy withering portion with the fame,
    The searing glory which hath shone
    Amid the jewels of my throne,
    Halo of Hell!

    Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.

    Know thou the secret of a spirit
    Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.

    By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.

    It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.


    The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.

    To be thoroughly conversant with a man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.

    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
    Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
    Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
    What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
    Meant in croaking "Nevermore.



    To Helen Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand, Ah Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land.

    Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.

    The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
    And the mist upon the hill
    Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
    Is a symbol and a token.

    Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
    Is a world of sweets and sours;
    Our flowers are merely- flowers,
    And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
    Is the sunshine of ours.

    Parted upon their misty wings,
    And, so, confusedly, became
    Thine image, and- a name- a name!

    Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
    A wonder to these garden trees!


    Thy soul shall find itself alone'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness, for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee, and their will Shall overshadow thee be still.

    Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

    How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
    How fathomless a capacity for love!

    The world is a great ocean, upon which we encounter more tempestuous storms than calms.


    Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

    Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

    To speak algebraically, Mr. M. is execrable, but Mr. G. is (x 1)- ecrable. Discussing fellow writers Cornelius Mathews and William Ellery Channing.

    In chess, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex, is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound.

    Finally on Sunday morning, October 7, 1849, 'He became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time. Then, gently, moving his head, he said, 'Lord help my poor soul.' As he had lived so he diedin great misery and tragedy.

    We now demand the light artillery of the intellect we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused -- in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible.

    It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma ... which human ingenuity may not, by proper application,resolve.

    Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
    My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
    And purified in their electric fire,
    And sanctified in their elysian fire.

    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.

    The Merchant, to Secure His Treasure The merchant, to secure his treasure, Conveys it in a borrowed name Euphelia serves to grace my measure, But Cloe is my real flame. My softest verse, my darling lyre Upon Euphelia's toilet lay - When Cloe noted her desire That I should sing, that I should play. My lyre I tune, my voice I raise, But with my numbers mix my sighs And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise, I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes. Fair Cloe blushed Euphelia frowned I sung, and gazed I played, and trembled And Venus to the Loves around Remarked how ill we all dissembled.



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