Edgar Allan Poe Quotes (173 Quotes)

Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...

True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

Everything we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

For the moon never beams, without giving me dreams, of the beautiful Annabel Lee, And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes, of the beautiful Annabel Lee

He knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling.

Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master.

Unguided Love hath fallen- 'mid tears of perfect moan.

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

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!

But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude:
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope- Oh God!

The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

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?

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast-
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.

On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O that light!

True daughter of Old Time thou art!

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.

Yes, I now feel that it was then on that evening of sweet dreams- that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver half of delight, half of anxiety.

When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly-
And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.

And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,-
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.

Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Sonnet To Science Science true daughter of Old Time thou art Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities How should he love thee or how deem thee wise Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree.

But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie-
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie-
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere.

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.

Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight-
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define-
Nor Love- although the Love were thine.

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted Nevermore.

Annabel Lee 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. I was a child and she was a chil.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

In joy and wo - in good and ill -
Mother of God, be with me still!

There is a two-fold Silence- sea and shore-
Body and soul.

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

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

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.

Filled with mingled cream and amber I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chambers of my brain -- Quaintest thoughts -- queerest fancies Come to life and fade away Who cares how time advances I am drinking ale today.

Which fall'st into the soul like rain
Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
And, failing in thy power to bless,
But leav'st the heart a wilderness!

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:--
Yes!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.

But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect