Edgar Allan Poe

Even in the grave all is not lost.

Decorum that bug bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity for bliss has forever gone by.

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.

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.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be when it suits him a coward.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

The writer who neglects punctuation or mispunctuates is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.

False hope is nicer than no hope at all.

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

There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm.

I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.

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.

I have no faith in human perfectability. 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.

To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" / Quoth the Raven “Nevermore."

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.

A mans grammar like Caesars wife should not only be pure but above suspicion of impurity.

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

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

There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.

There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.

We loved with a love that was more than love.

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

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.

Invisible things are the only realities.

I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

All that we see is but a dream within a dream.

If you run out of ideas follow the road; you'll get there.

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

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

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

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?

Ah distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.

Indeed there is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.

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.

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

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

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

Deep into that darkness peering long I stood there wondering fearing doubting dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

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

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.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.

Stupidity is a talent for misconception.

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.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

The death of a beautiful woman is questionably the most poetic topic in the world.

Years of love have been forgot. In the hatred of a minute.

The object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose.

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.

I have great faith in fools self-confidence my friends will call it.

Sleep, those little slices of death - how I loathe them.

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

Thank Heaven the crisis The danger is past and the lingering illness is over at last and the fever called Living is conquered at last.

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.

Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

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

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

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 - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

No one should brave the underworld alone.

So lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake.

there is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the propotion.

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls...

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.

Sound loves to revel in a summer night.