Edgar Allan Poe quotes - page 4

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. (Edgar Allan Poe)
The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
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. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
To be thoroughly conversant with a man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
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. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee. (Edgar Allan Poe)
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. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
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. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
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. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
And as, in ethics, Evil is a consequence of Good, so, in fact, out of Joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
I attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester - and this is my last jest. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! (Edgar Allan Poe)
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom. View quote
Edgar Allan Poe