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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

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Famous Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.”

KnowsYearsFirstsBookCountryWholeSpiritFoundHouseHeavenDarkViewsBuildingLowsCloudsPassingPassingsEveningDullAutumnLengthMelancholyShadeHungGlimpseGloomDrearyInsufferableHorseback
Book:Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
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“The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment.”

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Book:The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe: An Annotated Edition
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“By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a nature so completely unexpected--so entirely novel--so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions--as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.”

MindLongBookStatesReasonSeemsTogetherCitiesOpinionNovelDoubtLateEuropeEarsAccountsPhilosophicalPhysicsAstronomyExcitementNo DoubtUnexpectedVarianceRotterdam
Book:The Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated Edition): Annabel Lee, Ligeia, The Sphinx, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-tale Heart, Berenice, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, Eureka…
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“In the one instance, the dreamerloses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestionsuntilhe finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings,... forgotten. In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance.”

FirstsCausesImaginationVisionCasesObjectsSightImportanceAssumingForgottenMediumsInstancePrimariesWildernessUnrealForgetfulnessFrivolousDeductionsMusings
Author:Edgar Allan Poe
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“The want of an international Copy-Right Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the wayof remuneration for literary labor, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews.”

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Book:Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories
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“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice--although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”

DoeShowsAsksLiteratureStyleStrangeWittyHorribleSuperiorsMagazinesAsk MeGrantsArticlesFearfulExecutionMysticalExaggeratedGrotesqueIndebtedBurlesque
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)
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“Tell a scoundrel, three or four times a day, that he is the pink of probity, and you make him at least the perfection of "respectability" in good earnest. On the other hand, accuse an honorable man, too petinaciously, of being a villain, and you fill him with a perverse ambition to show you that you are not altogether in the wrong.”

MenShowsHandsThreeFourAmbitionPerfectionRevengeVillainHonorablePersecutionEarnestScoundrelsRespectabilityHonorable ManProbity
Author:Edgar Allan Poe
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“In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.”

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Book:The literati: some honest opinions about autorial merits and demerits, with occasional works of personality. Together with marginalia, suggestions, and essays
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“I might refer at once, if necessary, to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely extended excitement.”

IfsWellsMayLongCharacterMightMemoriesCitiesReaderCircumstancesHundredPainfulIntenseInstanceExcitementRemarkableLong AgoBaltimore
Book:Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
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“And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. 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. To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.”

IfsReasonMomentsPassionLostEffortFailingArmsApproachReflectionEdgesChecksDestroyedUrgesFriendlyAbyssIndulgeImpatientPlungePrecipiceShuddering
Book:Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Illustrated By Arthur Rackham
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