Authors:

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes - Page 11

All Quotes Age Alcohol Art Atheism Beauty Character Chess Children Crime Darkness Death Desire Doubt Drinking Dying Earth Effort Evil Failing Genius Giving Halloween Heart Heaven Humanity Imagination Insanity Inspirational Intelligence Joy Language Life Life And Death Literature Loneliness Love Lying Madness Marriage Memories Moon Mountain Pain Passion Past Perfection Pleasure Poetry Purpose Reality Reflection Revenge Sad Sanity Science Silver Sorrow Soul Spring Suffering Terror Torture Truth Universe Vision Writing
Thy soul shall find itself alone ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the

Thy soul shall find itself alone ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. [...]

Edgar Allan Poe
Loneliness, Tombstone, Dark
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.1219, e-artnow

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Purpose, Fiction, Certain
Edgar Allan Poe, Stuart Levine, Susan Levine (1976). “The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition”, p.308, University of Illinois Press

After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.

Edgar Allan Poe
God, Reading, Men
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.2090, Delphi Classics

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. Ah! 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? That holy dream- that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar- What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star?

Edgar Allan Poe
Life, Dream, Lonely
Edgar Allan Poe, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell (1853). “The works of the late Edgar Allan Poe”, p.105

..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

Edgar Allan Poe
Mind, Causes, Bears

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

Edgar Allan Poe
Imagination, Literature, Facts
1841 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', in the Gentleman's Magazine, Apr.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Men, Hands, Suffering
Edgar Allan Poe, Harry Clarke (2008). “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”, p.168, Courier Corporation

The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess.

Edgar Allan Poe
Reflection, Games, Chess
Edgar Allan Poe (2006). “The Best of Poe”, p.28, Prestwick House Inc

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
People, Able, Fats
Edgar Allan Poe (2011). “The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe: A Kaplan SAT Score-Raising Classic”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Successful, Body, Toady

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.

Edgar Allan Poe
Reason, Poet, Mathematician
Edgar Allan Poe, Stuart Levine, Susan Levine (1976). “The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition”, p.232, University of Illinois Press

The result of law inviolate is perfection–right–negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, positive pain.

Edgar Allan Poe
Pain, Law, Perfection
Edgar Allan Poe (1845). “Tales”, p.56

Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day; or the agonies which are have their origins in ecstasies which might have been.

Edgar Allan Poe
Memories, Past, Agony
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.293, e-artnow

Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain — Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies Come to life and fade away; What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today.

Edgar Allan Poe
Food, Drinking, Beer
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.229, Delphi Classics

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Artist, Men, Names
Edgar Allan Poe (1980). “The Unknown Poe: An Anthology of Fugitive Writings”, p.51, City Lights Books

And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. 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. To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Edgar Allan Poe
Passion, Reflection, Effort
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Illustrated By Arthur Rackham”, p.15, Read Books Ltd

It is the curse of a certain order of mind, that it can never rest satisfied with the consciousness of its ability to do a thing.Still less is it content with doing it. It must both know and show how it was done.

Edgar Allan Poe
Order, Mind, Done
Edgar Allan Poe, Gary Richard Thompson (1984). “Essays and Reviews”, p.1340, Library of America

A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Edgar Allan Poe
Revenge, Done, Failing
Edgar Allan Poe (2004). “The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.185, Wordsworth Editions

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.

Edgar Allan Poe
Home, Evil, Sorrow
Edgar Allan Poe (2015). “Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe:”, p.99, Sheba Blake Publishing

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities- that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.

Edgar Allan Poe
Block, Illustration, Class
Tales of Mystery and Imagination The Murders in the Rue Morgue (p. 208)

...for her whom in life thou dids't abhor, in death thou shalt adore

Edgar Allan Poe
Adore

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.

Edgar Allan Poe
Strong, Men, Bed
Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.1207, Ageless Reads

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door — Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; — This it is, and nothing more.

Edgar Allan Poe
Heart, Doors, Purple
Edgar Allan Poe (2015). “A Classic Crime Collection”, p.168, Simon and Schuster

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Agony, Feelings, Crowds
Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories”, p.336, Bottletree Books LLC

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

Edgar Allan Poe
Life And Death, Equal, Stills

You May Also Like: