No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.
Edgar Allan PoeIn other words, I believed, and still do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
Edgar Allan PoeThat 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.
Edgar Allan PoeThere 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 PoeVillains!' I shrieked. 'Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!
Edgar Allan PoeLife is for the strong, to be lived by the strong and if need be, taken by the strong. The weak were put on earth to give the strong pleasure.
Edgar Allan PoeBy a route obscure and lonely Haunted by ill angels only, Where an eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule -- From a wild, weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE, out of TIME.
Edgar Allan PoeThe pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.
Edgar Allan PoeOne half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator's sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him.
Edgar Allan PoeIf I could dwell where Israfel hath dwelt and he where I he might not sing so wildly well a mortal melody while a bolder note then this might swell from my lyre in the sky.
Edgar Allan PoeMarking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
Edgar Allan PoeOf puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
Edgar Allan PoeIt will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Edgar Allan PoeIt is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.
Edgar Allan PoeAlas! for that accursed time They bore thee o'er the billow, From love to titled age and crime, And an unholy pillow! From me, and from our misty clime, Where weeps the silver willow!
Edgar Allan PoeIn me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.
Edgar Allan PoeThe mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist
Edgar Allan PoeTo vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
Edgar Allan PoeWe now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused -- in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible.
Edgar Allan PoeThe sole purpose is to provide infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the eternal thirst TO KNOW which is forever unquenchable within it, since to quench it, would be to extinguish the soul's self.
Edgar Allan PoeYou are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan PoeAnd now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
Edgar Allan PoeThe realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,—not the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
Edgar Allan PoeThere are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.
Edgar Allan PoeYet 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.
Edgar Allan PoeTake thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.
Edgar Allan PoeIf I venture to displace ... the microscopical speck of dust... on the point of my finger,... I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of multitudinous myriads of stars.
Edgar Allan PoeI am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
Edgar Allan PoeI 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 PoeWe gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man.
Edgar Allan Poe