1809-1845, American Poet, Critic, short-story Writer
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.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Christians and Christianity]
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 – [Meaning of Life]
All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Dreams]
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Beauty]
Believe me, there exists no such dilemma as that in which a gentleman is placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Gentlemen]
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Dreams]
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Insanity]
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Self-confidence]
I have no faith in human perfectibility. 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.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Perfection]
I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Opera]
If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own — the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple — a few plain words — ''My Heart Laid Bare.'' But — this little book must be true to its title.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Confession]
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Critics and Criticism]
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Imagination]
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Expectation]
Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Memory]
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.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Death and Dying]
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Coward and Cowardice]
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.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Thoughts and Thinking]
The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Cards]
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
Edgar Allan Poe – [Mobs]