Authors — Quotes

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes: 51

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Eleonora
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.
I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends will call it.
Marginalia
I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.
There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
The best things in life make you sweaty.
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.
I have no faith in human perfectibility. 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 boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Invisible things are the only realities.
Loss of Breath
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.
And all I loved, I loved alone.
The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
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.
Even in the grave, all is not lost.
It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream.
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.
Complete Tales & Poems
True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems
Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.
The Complete Stories and Poems
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health.
Ne Pariez Jamais Votre Tête Au Diable Et Autres Contes Non Traduits Par Baudelaire
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel 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 the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.
The idea of God, infinity, or spirit stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.
Blood was its Avatar and its seal.
Lord help my poor soul.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise but i feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Annabel Lee
It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.
By a route obscure and lonelyHaunted by ill angels only,Where an eidolon, named NIGHT,On a black throne reigns upright,I have reached these lands but newlyFrom an ultimate dim Thule --From a wild, weird clime that lieth, sublime,Out of SPACE, out of TIME.
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
The Poetic Principle
You call it hope — that fire of fire!It is but agony of desire.
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
The Black Cat
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems
I have been happy, though in a dream.I have been happy-and I love the theme:Dreams! in their vivid colouring of lifeAs in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!
Philosophers have often held disputeAs to the seat of thought in man and bruteFor that the power of thought attends the latterMy friend, thy beau, hath made a settled matter,And spite of dogmas current in all ages,One settled fact is better than ten sages. (O,Tempora! O,Mores!)
The Complete Stories and Poems