Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

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Colorful Cartoon of Edgar Allan Poe with text that reads Edgar Allan Poe quotes. — These are our favorite Edgar Allan Poe quotes!

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality
I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
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.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
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.
I have great faith in fools – self-confidence my friends will call it.
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?
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.
I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness – the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.
Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
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.
In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
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.
As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.
I smiled,—for what had I to fear?
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
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.
Science has its place in man’s search for understanding, but science and the imagination have tended to bifurcate in the modern world; only the true poetic intellect can end this long-established dualism.
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
Invisible things are the only realities.
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.
The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.
I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme.
That which you mistake for madness is but an overacuteness of the senses.
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders.
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
I dread the events of the future, not in themselves but in their results.
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
It is a happiness to wonder; — it is a happiness to dream.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.
Even in the grave, all is not lost.
Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore…
Art is to look at not to criticize.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
A man’s grammar, like Caesar’s wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.
Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health.
The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.
When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect – they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul – not of intellect, or of heart.
In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
The rain came down upon my head – Unshelter’d. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
The idea of God, infinity, or spirit stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.
We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
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?
There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm.
When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket.
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.
Blood was its Avatar and its seal.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion, even by the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
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.
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted — Nevermore!
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow.
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you”— here I opened wide the door; — Darkness there, and nothing more.
If a poem hasn’t ripped apart your soul; you haven’t experienced poetry.
All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.
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.
I am a writer. Therefore, I am not sane.
Imperceptibly the love of these discords grew upon me as my love of music grew stronger.
Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the alter,and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.
The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Even for those to whom life and death are equal jests. There are some things that are still held in respect.
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
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.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offenses against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.
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.
Other friends have flown before — On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement.
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.
Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends will call it.
I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.
There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.
Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path.
I am actuated by an ambition which I believe to be an honorable one — the ambition of serving the great cause of truth, while endeavoring to forward the literature of the country.
The best things in life make you sweaty.
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.
Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.
In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.
How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!
Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.
Deep in earth my love is lying. And I must weep alone.
We loved with a love that was more than love… With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence – whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought – from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror.
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.

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