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Edgar Allan Poe Quotes - Page 10

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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.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Song, Writing, Thinking
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.1877, Delphi Classics

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Doubt, May, Enigma
"The Gold-Bug" (1843).

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Fire, World, Taught

The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age, since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.

Edgar Allan Poe
Book, Evil, Age
Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.1283, Ageless Reads

To be thoroughly conversant with Man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair

Edgar Allan Poe
Heart, Men, Iron
1849 'Marginalia', in the Southern Literary Messenger, Jun.

If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?

Edgar Allan Poe
Mind, Visible, Ifs
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “The Works of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

I heed not that my earthly lot Hath - little of Earth in it - That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute: - I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer by.

Edgar Allan Poe
Sweet, Fate, Years
Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Ollive Mabbott (1969). “Complete Poems”, p.137, University of Illinois Press

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely—flowers.

Edgar Allan Poe
Sweet, Flower, Heaven
1845 'Israfel', stanza 7.

I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

Edgar Allan Poe
Long, Doe, Phrases
Edgar Allan Poe, Gary Richard Thompson (1984). “Essays and Reviews”, p.71, Library of America

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Criticism, Purpose, Literature
Edgar Allan Poe (2017). “The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated Edition): The Raven, Tamerlane, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-tale Heart, Berenice, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, Eureka…”, p.2221, e-artnow

Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite an easy thing to invent a method of secret writing that shall baffle investigation. Yet it may be roundly asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve.

Edgar Allan Poe
Believe, Writing, Discovery
Edgar Allan Poe (2016). “Complete Works Of Edgar Allan Poe: The New Raven Edition”, p.1177, ShandonPress

If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear - but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.

Edgar Allan Poe
Photography, Art, Powerful

There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous--secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will--we know that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books . . . we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.

Edgar Allan Poe
Book, Ill Will, Criticism
Edgar Allan Poe (2016). “Complete Works Of Edgar Allan Poe: The New Raven Edition”, p.1708, ShandonPress

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Dream, Fleeting, Vivid
Edgar Allan Poe, William Heath Robinson (2013). “The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.113, Courier Corporation

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Heart, Imagination, Sublime
1839 'The Fall of the House of Usher', in the Gentleman's Magazine, Sep.

...for the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which could lie in the future. With God all is Now.

Edgar Allan Poe
Lying, Law, Insanity
Edgar Allan Poe (2004). “The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.60, Wordsworth Editions

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Fashion, Science, Oddities
Edgar Allan Poe, Stuart Levine, Susan Levine (1976). “The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition”, p.226, University of Illinois Press

There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.

Edgar Allan Poe
Death, Butterfly, Two
Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.501, Ageless Reads

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Edgar Allan Poe
Fall, Gay, Night
Edgar Allan Poe (1927). “Tales by Edgar Allan Poe”, p.266, Dimitrios Spyridon Chytiris

The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

Edgar Allan Poe
Rain, Wind, Mad
Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Classics Reimagined, Edgar Allan Poe: Stories & Poems”, p.184, Rockport Pub

...If you do not take it up with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel

Edgar Allan Poe
Way, Shovels, Ifs
Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories”, p.184, Bottletree Books LLC

If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own -- the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple -- a few plain words -- My Heart Laid Bare. But -- this little book must be true to its title.

Edgar Allan Poe
Honesty, Lying, Book
Edgar Allan Poe (2006). “The Portable Edgar Allan Poe”, p.601, Penguin

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Dream, Sweet, Night
Edgar Allan Poe (1966). “Letters”

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Love, Heart, Loss
Edgar Allan Poe (2017). “EDGAR ALLAN POE: 72 Short Stories and Novels & 80+ Poems; Including Essays, Letters & Biography (Illustrated): Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, Tamerlane, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-tale Heart, Berenice, The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, Eureka…”, p.1241, e-artnow

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.

Edgar Allan Poe
Distance, Goal, Mind
Edgar Allan Poe, Stuart Levine, Susan Levine (1976). “The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition”, p.181, University of Illinois Press

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