Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

276 Sourced Quotes

As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth—unless we except the case of the "prairie dogs," an exception which seems to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of government—for dogs.

Edgar Allan Poe
The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not — and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul.

Edgar Allan Poe
There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.

Edgar Allan Poe
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Edgar Allan Poe
He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.

Edgar Allan Poe
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? — 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 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.

Edgar Allan Poe
In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.

Edgar Allan Poe
If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?

Edgar Allan Poe
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom.

Edgar Allan Poe
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

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

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

Edgar Allan Poe
The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.

Edgar Allan Poe
Not hear it? —yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long —long —long —many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it —yet I dared not —oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! —I dared not —I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!

Edgar Allan Poe
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.

Edgar Allan Poe
If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable, the "state of progressive collapse" is precisely that state in which alone we are warranted in considering All Things.

Edgar Allan Poe
It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night — and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

Edgar Allan Poe
I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe
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.

Edgar Allan Poe
Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul —
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

Edgar Allan Poe
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
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. 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
A dark unfathom'd tide
Of interminable pride —
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem.

Edgar Allan Poe
We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many Colored Grass.

Edgar Allan Poe
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!

Edgar Allan Poe