Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

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

The true genius shudders at incompleteness.

There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.

In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

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.

True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had haunted my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Of all the sense of hearing acute.

..bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation-to make a point-than to further the cause of truth." Dupin in "The Mystery of Marie Roget

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...

In me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.

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

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

The people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.

A million candles have burned themselves out. Still I read on. (Montresor)

Melancholy is ... the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

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.

The goodness of your true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability.

Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors ... on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.

Believe me, there exists no such dilemma as that in which a gentleman is placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard.

Sound-- That stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim, And sees the darkness coming as a cloud-- Is not its form--its voice--most palpable and loud?

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

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.

Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.

Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.

Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture.

You call it hope-that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire.

This maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.

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.

There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge.

It would be mockery to call such dreariness heaven at all.

In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.

To speak algebraically, Mr. M. is execrable, but Mr. G. is (x + 1)- ecrable.

To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.

One half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator's sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him.

The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist

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.

Villains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!

In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.

Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.

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

There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.

Scorching my seared heart with a pain, not hell shall make me fear again.

Even for those to whom life and death are equal jests. There are some things that are still held in respect.

Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells, From the bells, bells, bells.

And I fell violently on my face.

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

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

If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment.