Edgar Allan Poe Quotes
If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable, the "state of progressive collapse" is precisely that state in which alone we are warranted in considering All Things.
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep!
Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man.
No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more than approach the living and breathing human beauty as it gladdens our daily path.
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.
Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine.
For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.
The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery-in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks.
As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.
He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who ... shall ... persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or nevermore!
He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.
It all depends on the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. - Daupin
The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities.
How much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.
In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know all were the curse of a fiend
Boston: Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good.
Alas! for that accursed time They bore thee o'er the billow, From love to titled age and crime, And an unholy pillow! From me, and from our misty clime, Where weeps the silver willow!
The Romans worshipped their standard; and the Roman standard happened to be an eagle. Our standard is only one tenth of an eagle,--a dollar, but we make all even by adoring it with tenfold devotion.
Tell me truly, I implore-- Is there-- is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design.
Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health.
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime
Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces
The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.
I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy-and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet . . . yet the fool has never read Shakespeare.
Imperceptibly the love of these discords grew upon me as my love of music grew stronger.
True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
I am actuated by an ambition which I believe to be an honourable one the ambition of serving the great cause of truth, while endeavouring to forward the literature of the country.
There are some qualities, some incorporate things, that have a double life, which thus is made. A type os twin entity which springs from matter and light, envinced in solid and shade.
As an individual, I myself feel impelled to fancy ... a limitless succession of Universes.... Each exists, apart and independently, in the bosom of its proper and particular God.
If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.