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...and, All At Once, The Moon Arouse Through The Thin Ghastly Mist, And Was Crimson In Color... And They Lynx Which Dwelleth Forever In The Tomb, Came Out Therefrom. And Lay Down At The Feet Of The Demon. And Looked At Him Steadily In The Face.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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...and, All At Once,

Edgar Allan Poe

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...and, All At Once, The Moon Arouse Through The Thin Ghastly Mist, And Was Crimson In Color... And They Lynx Which Dwelleth Forever In The Tomb, Came Out Therefrom. And Lay Down At The Feet Of The Demon. And Looked At Him Steadily In The Face.

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In The Heaven's Above, The Angels, Whispering To One Another, Can Find, Among Their Burning Terms Of Love, None So Devotional As That Of 'mother.

I Have No Words Alas! To Tell The Loveliness Of Loving Well

And The Silken Sad Uncertain Rustling Of Each Purple Curtain Thrilled Me — Filled Me With Fantastic Terrors Never Felt Before; So That Now, To Still The Beating Of My Heart, I Stood Repeating, Tis Some Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door — Some Late Visitor Entreating Entrance At My Chamber Door; — This It Is, And Nothing More.

I Intend To Put Up With Nothing That I Can Put Down.

The Boundaries Which Divide Life From Death Are At Best Shadowy And Vague. Who Shall Say Where The One Ends, And Where The Other Begins?

A Lie Travels Round The World While Truth Is Putting Her Boots On.

With Me Poetry Has Been Not A Purpose, But A Passion; And The Passions Should Be Held In Reverence: They Must Not They Cannot At Will Be Excited, With An Eye To The Paltry Compensations, Or The More Paltry Commendations, Of Mankind.

A Gentleman With A Pug Nose Is A Contradiction In Terms.

Sleep, Those Little Slices Of Death — How I Loathe Them.

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.

Let My Heart Be Still A Moment And This Mystery Explore.

To Speak Algebraically, Mr. M. Is Execrable, But Mr. G. Is (x + 1)- Ecrable.

Sound-- That Stealeth Ever On The Ear Of Him Who, Musing, Gazeth On The Distance Dim, And Sees The Darkness Coming As A Cloud-- Is Not Its Form--its Voice--most Palpable And Loud?

Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There, Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared To Dream Before.

To Observe Attentively Is To Remember Distinctly.

No Thinking Being Lives Who, At Some Luminous Point Of His Life Of Thought, Has Not Felt Himself Lost Amid The Surges Of Futile Efforts At Understanding, Or Believing, That Anything Exists Greater Than His Own Soul.

I Found Him Well Educated, With Unusual Powers Of Mind, But Infected With Misanthropy, And Subject To Perverse Moods Of Alternate Enthusiasm And Melancholy.

Men Of Genius Are Far More Abundant Than Is Supposed. In Fact, To Appreciate Thoroughly The Work Of What We Call Genius, Is To Possess All The Genius By Which The Work Was Produced.

A Change Fell Upon All Things. Strange Brilliant Flowers, Star-shaped, Burst Out Upon The Trees Where No Flowers Had Been Before. The Tints Of The Green Carpet Deepened; And When, One By One, The White Daisies Shrank Away, There Sprang Up, In Place Of Them, Ten By Ten Of The Ruby-red Asphodel. And Life Arose In Our Paths; For The Tall Flamingo Hitherto Unseen, With All Gay Glowing Birds, Flaunted His Scarlet Plumage Before Us. The Golden And Silver Fish Haunted The River.

One Morning, In Cool Blood, I Slipped A Noose About Its Neck And Hung It To The Limb Of A Tree; — Hung It With The Tears Streaming From My Eyes, And With The Bitterest Remorse At My Heart; — Hung It Because I Knew That It Had Loved Me, And Because I Felt It Had Given Me No Reason Of Offence; — Hung It Because I Knew That In So Doing I Was Committing A Sin — A Deadly Sin That Would So Jeopardize My Immortal Soul As To Place It — If Such A Thing Were Possible — Even Beyond The Reach Of The Infinite Mercy Of The Most Merciful And Most Terrible God.

The Word "verse" Is Used Here As The Term Most Convenient For Expressing, And Without Pedantry, All That Is Involved In The Consideration Of Rhythm, Rhyme, Meter, And Versification... The Subject Is Exceedingly Simple; One Tenth Of It, Possibly May Be Called Ethical; Nine Tenths, However, Appertains To The Mathematics.

In For Ever Knowing, We Are For Ever Blessed; But To Know All Were The Curse Of A Fiend

You Need Not Attempt To Shake Off Or To Banter Off Romance. It Is An Evil You Will Never Get Rid Of To The End Of Your Days. It Is A Part Of Yourself ... Of Your Soul. Age Will Only Mellow It A Little, And Give It A Holier Tone.

In The Marginalia ... We Talk Only To Ourselves; We Therefore Talk Freshly - Boldly - Originally - With Abandonment - Without Conceit.

And My Soul From Out That Shadow That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted -- Nevermore!

The Unity Of Effect Or Impression Is A Point Of The Greatest Importance. It Is Clear, Moreover, That This Unity Cannot Be Thoroughly Preserved In Productions Whose Perusal Cannot Be Completed At One Sitting.

He Is, As You Say, A Remarkable Horse, A Prodigious Horse, Although As You Very Justly Observe, A Suspicious And Untractable Character.

It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.

By 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.

Beauty Of Whatever Kind, In Its Supreme Development, Invariably Excites The Sensitive Soul To Tears.

In [chess], Where The Pieces Have Different And "bizarre" Motions, With Various And Variable Values, What Is Only Complex, Is Mistaken (a Not Unusual Error) For What Is Profound

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

Deep In Earth My Love Is Lying And I Must Weep Alone.

I Hold That A Long Poem Does Not Exist. I Maintain That The Phrase, "a Long Poem," Is Simply A Flat Contradiction In Terms.

Boston: Their Hotels Are Bad. Their Pumpkin Pies Are Delicious. Their Poetry Is Not So Good.

The Rudiment Of Verse May, Possibly, Be Found In The Spondee.

Marking A Book Is Literally An Experience Of Your Differences Or Agreements With The Author. It Is The Highest Respect You Can Pay Him.

To See Distinctly The Machinery--the Wheels And Pinions--of Any Work Of Art Is, Unquestionably, Of Itself, A Pleasure, But One Which We Are Able To Enjoy Only Just In Proportion As We Do Not Enjoy The Legitimate Effect Designed By The Artist.

Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.

There Might Be A Class Of Beings, Human Once, But Now To Humanity Invisible, For Whose Scrutiny, And For Whose Refined Appreciation Of The Beautiful, More Especially Than For Our Own, Had Been Set In Order By God The Great Landscape-garden Of The Whole Earth.

And Now Was Acknowledged The Presence Of The Red Death. He Had Come Like A Thief In The Night. And One By One Dropped The Revelers In The Blood-bedewed Halls Of Their Revel, And Died Each In The Despairing Posture Of His Fall. And The Life Of The Ebony Clock Went Out With That Of The Last Of The Gay. And The Flames Of The Tripods Expired. And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

Happiness Is Not To Be Found In Knowledge, But In The Acquisition Of Knowledge

To Die Laughing Must Be The Most Glorious Of All Glorious Deaths!

To Helen Helen, Thy Beauty Is To Me Like Those Nicean Barks Of Yore That Gently, O'er A Perfumed Sea, The Weary, Way-worn Wanderer Bore To His Own Native Shore. On Desperate Seas Long Wont To Roam, Thy Hyacinth Hair, Thy Classic Face, Thy Naiad Airs Have Brought Me Home To The Glory That Was Greece, And The Grandeur That Was Rome. Lo, In Yon Brilliant Window-niche How Statue-like I See Thee Stand, The Agate Lamp Within Thy Hand, Ah! Psyche, From The Regions Which Are Holy Land!

I Have Absolutely No Pleasure In The Stimulants In Which I Sometimes So Madly Indulge. It Has Not Been In The Pursuit Of Pleasure That I Have Periled Life And Reputation And Reason. It Has Been The Desperate Attempt To Escape From Torturing Memories, From A Sense Of Insupportable Loneliness And A Dread Of Some Strange Impending Doom.

In Visions Of The Dark Night I Have Dreamed Of Joy Departed- But A Waking Dream Of Life And Light Hath Left Me Broken-hearted. Ah! What Is Not A Dream By Day To Him Whose Eyes Are Cast On Things Around Him With A Ray Turned Back Upon The Past? That Holy Dream- That Holy Dream, While All The World Were Chiding, Hath Cheered Me As A Lovely Beam A Lonely Spirit Guiding. What Though That Light, Thro' Storm And Night, So Trembled From Afar- What Could There Be More Purely Bright In Truth's Day-star?

Literature Is The Most Noble Of Professions. In Fact, It Is About The Only One Fit For A Man.

A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

In The Tale Proper--where There Is No Space For Development Of Character Or For Great Profusion And Variety Of Incident--mere Construction Is, Of Course, Far More Imperatively Demanded Than In The Novel.

Mysteries Force A Man To Think, And So Injure His Health.

I Stand Amid The Roar Of A Surf-tormented Shore, And I Hold Within My Hand Grains Of Golden Sand- How Few! Yet How They Creep Through My Fingers To The Deep, While I Weep- While I Weep!

There Is Then No Analogy Whatever Between The Operations Of The Chess-player, And Those Of The Calculating Machine Of Mr. Babbage , And If We Choose To Call The Former A Pure Machine We Must Be Prepared To Admit That It Is, Beyond All Comparison, The Most Wonderful Of The Inventions Of Mankind.

The Pioneers And Missionaries Of Religion Have Been The Real Cause Of More Trouble And War Than All Other Classes Of Mankind.

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness - And Usually Prefers Silence To Saying Something Which Is Not Everything It Should Be.

Sensations Are The Great Things, After All. Should You Ever Be Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations; They Will Be Worth To You Ten Guineas A Sheet.

The Mere Imitation, However Accurate, Of What Is In Nature, Entitles No Man To The Sacred Name Of Artist

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.

Reality Is The #1 Cause Of Insanity Among Those Who Are In Contact With It

A Million Candles Have Burned Themselves Out. Still I Read On. (montresor)

Music, When Combined With A Pleasurable Idea, Is Poetry; Music, Without The Idea, Is Simply Music; The Idea, Without The Music, Is Prose, From Its Very Definitiveness.

True, Nervous, Very, Very Dreadfully Nervous I Had Been And Am, But Why Will Say That I Am Mad?! The Disease Had Haunted My Senses, Not Destroyed, Not Dulled Them. Of All The Sense Of Hearing Acute.

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.

It Is The Nature Of Truth In General, As Of Some Ores In Particular, To Be Richest When Most Superficial.

When, Indeed, Men Speak Of Beauty, They Mean, Precisely, Not A Quality, As Is Supposed, But An Effect - They Refer, In Short, Just To That Intense And Pure Elevation Of Soul - Not Of Intellect, Or Of Heart.

Years Of Love Have Been Forgot, In The Hatred Of A Minute.

Take Thy Beak From Out My Heart, And Take Thy Form From Off My Door!” Quoth The Raven, “nevermore.

Imperceptibly The Love Of These Discords Grew Upon Me As My Love Of Music Grew Stronger.

I Must Perish In This Deplorable Folly. Thus, Thus, And Not Otherwise, Shall I Be Lost. I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves, But In Their Results. I Shudder At The Thought Of Any, Even The Most Trivial, Incident, Which May Operate Upon This Intolerable Agitation Of Soul. I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect-in Terror. In This Unnerved-in This Pitiable Condition-i Feel That The Period Will Sooner Or Later Arrive When I Must Abandon Life And Reason Together, In Some Struggle With The Grim Phantasm, Fear.

Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.

In Spite Of The Air Of Fablethe Public Were Still Not At All Disposed To Receive It As Fable. I Thence Concluded That The Facts Of My Narrative Would Prove Of Such A Nature As To Carry With Them Sufficient Evidence Of Their Own Authenticity.

...for The Question Is Of Will, And Not, As The Insanity Of Logic Has Assumed Of Power. It Is Not That The Deity Cannot Modify His Laws, But That We Insult Him In Imagining A Possible Necessity For Modification. In Their Origin These Laws Were Fashioned To Embrace All Contingencies Which Could Lie In The Future. With God All Is Now.

Dreams Are The Eraser Dust I Blow Off My Page. They Fade Into The Emptiness, Another Dark Gray Day. Dreams Are Only Memories Of The Plans I Had Back Then. Dreams Are Eraser Dust And Now I Use A Pen.

They Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night.

Always Keep A Big Bottle Of Booze At Your Side. If A Bird Starts Talking Nonsense To You In The Middle Of The Night Pour Yourself A Stiff Drink.

Now This Is The Point. You Fancy Me A Mad. Madmen Know Nothing. But You Should Have Seen Me. You Should Have Seen How Wisely I Proceeded.

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

If You Have Never Been At Sea In A Heavy Gale, You Can Form No Idea Of The Confusion Of Mind Occasioned By Wind And Spry Together. They Blind, Deafen, And Strangle You, And Take Away All Power Of Action Or Reflection.

The Eye, Like A Shattered Mirror, Multiplies The Images Of Sorrow

It Is A Happiness To Wonder; -- It Is A Happiness To Dream.

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.

Scorching My Seared Heart With A Pain, Not Hell Shall Make Me Fear Again.

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

A Poem Deserves Its Title Only Inasmuch As It Excites, By Elevating The Soul.

Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.

Then, Methought, The Air Grew Denser, Perfumed From An Unseen Censer Swung By Seraphim Whose Footfalls Tinkled On The Tufted Floor. "wretch," I Cried, "thy God Hath Lent Thee--by These Angels He Hath Sent Thee-- Respite--respite And Nepenthe From Thy Memories Of Lenore! Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!" Quothe The Raven, "nevermore.

Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortals Ever Dared To Dream Before; But The Silence Was Unbroken, And The Stillness Gave No Token, And The Only Word There Spoken Was The Whispered Word, "lenore?" This I Whispered, And An Echo Murmured Back The Word, "lenore!" — Merely This, And Nothing More

The Result Of Law Inviolate Is Perfection–right–negative Happiness. The Result Of Law Violate Is Imperfection, Wrong, Positive Pain.

It Was Many And Many A Year Ago, In A Kingdom By The Sea, That A Maiden There Lived Whom You May Know By The Name Of Annabel Lee;-- And This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.

Odors Have An Altogether Peculiar Force, In Affecting Us Through Association; A Force Differing Essentially From That Of Objects Addressing The Touch, The Taste, The Sight Or The Hearing.

Thou Wouldst Be Loved? - Then Let Thy Heart From Its Present Pathway Part Not! Being Everything Which Now Thou Art, Be Nothing Which Thou Art Not. So With The World Thy Gentle Ways, Thy Grace, Thy More Than Beauty, Shall Be An Endless Theme Of Praise, And Love - A Simple Duty.

I 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.

Every Moment Of The Night Forever Changing Places And They Put Out The Star-light With The Breath From Their Pale Faces

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 Those More Important Undertakings Where Mind Struggles With Mind.

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.

The 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.

The Fever Called "living" Is Conquer'd At Last.

We Allude To The Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal

The World Is A Great Ocean, Upon Which We Encounter More Tempestuous Storms Than Calms.

I Have No Faith In Human Perfectability. 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.

To Be Thoroughly Conversant With Man’s Heart, Is To Take Our Final Lesson In The Iron-clasped Volume Of Despair

In Efforts To Soar Above Our Nature, We Invariably Fall Below It.

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.

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.

Villains!' I Shrieked. 'dissemble No More! I Admit The Deed! Tear Up The Planks! Here, Here! It Is The Beating Of His Hideous Heart!

Many Years Ago, I Contracted An Intimacy With A Mr. William Legrand. He Was Of An Ancient Huguenot Family, And Had Once Been Wealthy; But A Series Of Misfortunes Had Reduced Him To Want.

If 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.

But In The Expression Of The Countenance, Which Was Beaming All Over With Smiles, There Still Lurked (incomprehensible Anomalyl) That Fitful Strain Of Melancholy Which Will Ever Be Found Inseparable From The Perfection Of The Beautiful.

Men Die Nightly In Their Beds, Wringing The Hands Of Ghostly Confessors ... On Account Of The Hideousness Of Mysteries Which Will Not Suffer Themselves To Be Revealed.

A Dirge For Her The Doubly Dead In That She Died So Young.

There Are Chords In The Hearts Of The Most Reckless Which Cannot Be Touched Without Emotion.

If In Many Of My Productions Terror Has Been The Thesis, I Maintain That Terror Is Not Of Germany, But Of The Soul.

Most Writers - Poets In Especial - Prefer Having It Understood That They Compose By A Species Of Fine Frenzy - An Ecstatic Intuition - And Would Positively Shudder At Letting The Public Take A Peep Behind The Scenes.

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.

You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.

Grammar Is The Analysis Of Language.

And Much Of Madness, And More Of Sin, And Horror The Soul Of The Plot.

-ev'n With Us The Breath Of Science Dims The Mirror Of Our Joy.

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.

It May Well Be Doubted Whether Human Ingenuity Can Construct An Enigma... Which Human Ingenuity May Not, By Proper Application, Resolve.

Gaily Bedight, A Gallant Knight, In Sunshine And In Shadow, Had Journeyed Long, Singing A Song, In Search Of Eldorado. But He Grew Old— This Knight So Bold— And O’er His Heart A Shadow— Fell As He Found No Spot Of Ground That Looked Like Eldorado. And, As His Strength Failed Him At Length, He Met A Pilgrim Shadow— ‘shadow,’ Said He, ‘where Can It Be— This Land Of Eldorado?’ ‘over The Mountains Of The Moon, Down The Valley Of The Shadow, Ride, Boldly Ride,’ The Shade Replied,— ‘if You Seek For Eldorado!

There Is Something In The Unselfish And Self-sacrificing Love Of A Brute, Which Goes Directly To The Heart Of Him Who Has Had Frequent Occasion To Test The Paltry Friendship And Gossamer Fidelity Of Mere Man.

I Have Great Faith In Fools,— Self-confidence My Friends Will Call It.

I Could Have Clasped The Red Walls To My Bosom As A Garment Of Eternal Peace. "death," I Said, "any Death But That Of The Pit!" Fool! Might I Have Not Known That Into The Pit It Was The Object Of The Burning Iron To Urge Me?

I Am Shadow, And My Dwelling Is Near To The Catacombs Of Ptolemais, And Hard By Those Dim Plains Of Helusion Which Border Upon The Foul Charonian Canal." And Then Did We, The Seven, Start From Our Seats In Horror, And Stand Trembling, And Shuddering, And Aghast, For The Tones In The Voice Of The Shadow Were Not The Tones Of Any One Being, But Of A Multitude Of Beings, And, Varying In Their Cadences From Syllable To Syllable Fell Duskly Upon Our Ears In The Well-remembered And Familiar Accents Of Many Thousand Departed Friends.

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.

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee

By Undue Profundity We Perplex And Enfeeble Thought; And It Is Possible To Make Even Venus Herself Vanish From The Firmament By A Scrutiny Too Sustained, Too Concentrated, Or Too Direct.

The Enormous Multiplication Of Books In Every Branch Of Knowledge Is One Of The Greatest Evils Of This Age, Since It Presents One Of The Most Serious Obstacles To The Acquisition Of Correct Information By Throwing In The Reader's Way Piles Of Lumber In Which He Must Painfully Grope For The Scraps Of Useful Matter, Peradventure Interspersed.

That Single Thought Is Enough. The Impulse Increases To A Wish, The Wish To A Desire, The Desire To An Uncontrollable Longing, And The Longing (to The Deep Regret And Mortification Of The Speaker, And In Defiance Of All Consequences,) Is Indulged.

But Psyche Uplifting Her Finger Said: Sadly This Star I Mistrust

Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.

Philosophers Have Often Held Dispute As To The Seat Of Thought In Man And Brute For That The Power Of Thought Attends The Latter My Friend, Thy Beau, Hath Made A Settled Matter, And Spite Of Dogmas Current In All Ages, One Settled Fact Is Better Than Ten Sages. (o,tempora! O,mores!)

O, Times! O, Manners! It Is My Opinion That You Are Changing Sadly Your Dominion I Mean The Reign Of Manners Hath Long Ceased, For Men Have None At All, Or Bad At Least; And As For Times, Altho' 'tis Said By Many The "good Old Times" Were Far The Worst Of Any, Of Which Sound Doctrine I Believe Each Tittle Yet Still I Think These Worst A Little. I've Been A Thinking -isn't That The Phrase?- I Like Your Yankee Words And Yankee Ways - I've Been A Thinking, Whether It Were Best To Take Things Seriously, Or All In Jest

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

If A Poem Hasn't Ripped Apart Your Soul; You Haven't Experienced Poetry.

The Writer Who Neglects Punctuation, Or Mispunctuates, Is Liable To Be Misunderstood For The Want Of Merely A Comma, It Often Occurs That An Axiom Appears A Paradox, Or That A Sarcasm Is Converted Into A Sermonoid.

There Are Few Persons Who Have Not, At Some Period Of Their Lives, Amused Themselves In Retracing The Steps By Which Particular Conclusions Of Their Own Minds Have Been Attained. The Occupation Is Often Full Of Interest And He Who Attempts It For The First Time Is Astonished By The Apparently Illimitable Distance And Incoherence Between The Starting-point And The Goal.

If You Are Ever Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations.

..bear In Mind That, In General, It Is The Object Of Our Newspapers Rather To Create A Sensation-to Make A Point-than To Further The Cause Of Truth." Dupin In "the Mystery Of Marie Roget

Read This And Thought Of You: Through Joy And Through Sorrow, I Wrote. Through Hunger And Through Thirst, I Wrote. Through Good Report And Through Ill Report, I Wrote. Through Sunshine And Through Moonshine, I Wrote. What I Wrote It Is Unnecessary To Say. ~ Edgar Allen Poe

I Fell In Love With Melancholy

Alas! 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!

In Reading Some Books We Occupy Ourselves Chiefly With The Thoughts Of The Author; In Perusing Others, Exclusively With Our Own.

Were I Called On To Define, Very Briefly, The Term Art, I Should Call It 'the Reproduction Of What The Senses Perceive In Nature Through The Veil Of The Soul.' The Mere Imitation, However Accurate, Of What Is In Nature, Entitles No Man To The Sacred Name Of 'artist.'

It Is Impossible To Say How First The Idea Entered My Brain, But, Once Conceived, It Haunted Me Day And Night.

In Beauty Of Face No Maiden Ever Equaled Her. It Was The Radiance Of An Opium-dream - An Airy And Spirit-lifting Vision More Wildly Divine Than The Fantasies Which Hovered About The Slumbering Souls Of The Daughters Of Delos.

Were The Succession Of Stars Endless, Then The Background Of The Sky Would Present Us An Uniform Luminosity, Like That Displayed By The Galaxy-since There Could Be Absolutely No Point, In All That Background, At Which Would Not Exist A Star. The Only Mode, Therefore, In Which, Under Such A State Of Affairs, We Could Comprehend The Voids Which Our Telescopes Find In Innumerable Directions, Would Be By Supposing The Distance Of The Invisible Background So Immense That No Ray From It Has Yet Been Able To Reach Us At All.

I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.

The Bostonians Are Really, As A Race, Far Inferior In Point Of Anything Beyond Mere Intellect To Any Other Set Upon The Continent Of North America. They Are Decidedly The Most Servile Imitators Of The English It Is Possible To Conceive.

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!

Coincidences, In General, Are Great Stumbling Blocks In The Way Of That Class Of Thinkers Who Have Been Educated To Know Nothing Of The Theory Of Probabilities- That Theory To Which The Most Glorious Objects Of Human Research Are Indebted For The Most Glorious Of Illustration.

There Is Not A More Disgusting Spectacle Under The Sun Than Our Subserviency To British Criticism. It Is Disgusting, First, Because It Is Truckling, Servile, Pusillanimous--secondly, Because Of Its Gross Irrationality. We Know The British To Bear Us Little But Ill Will--we Know That, In No Case Do They Utter Unbiased Opinions Of American Books . . . We Know All This, And Yet, Day After Day, Submit Our Necks To The Degrading Yoke Of The Crudest Opinion That Emanates From The Fatherland.

...and, All At Once, The Moon Arouse Through The Thin Ghastly Mist, And Was Crimson In Color... And They Lynx Which Dwelleth Forever In The Tomb, Came Out Therefrom. And Lay Down At The Feet Of The Demon. And Looked At Him Steadily In The Face.

It All Depends On The Robber's Knowledge Of The Loser's Knowledge Of The Robber. - Daupin

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.

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.

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.

He Knew That Hop-frog Was Not Fond Of Wine; For It Excited The Poor Cripple Almost To Madness; And Madness Is No Comfortable Feeling.

You Will Observe That The Stories Told Are All About Money-seekers, Not About Money-finders.

Yes, Heaven Is Thine; But This Is A World Of Sweets And Sours; Our Flowers Are Merelyflowers.

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.

No Man Who Ever Lived Knows Any More About The Hereafter Than You And I.

Man Is An Animal That Diddles, And There Is No Animal That Diddles But Man.

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence– Whether Much That Is Glorious– Whether All That Is Profound– Does Not Spring From Disease Of Thought– From Moods Of Mind Exalted At The Expense Of The General Intellect.

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.

Whether People Grow Fat By Joking, Or Whether There Is Something In Fat Itself Which Predisposes To A Joke, I Have Never Been Quite Able To Determine.

A Fool, For Example, Thinks Shakespeare A Great Poet . . . Yet The Fool Has Never Read Shakespeare.

The Object, Truth, Or The Satisfaction Of The Intellect, And The Object, Passion, Or The Excitement Of The Heart, Are, Although Attainable, To A Certain Extent, In Poetry, Far More Readily Attainable In Prose.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered Weak And Weary.

The Truth Is, I Am Heartily Sick Of This Life & Of The Nineteenth Century In General. (i Am Convinced That Every Thing Is Going Wrong.)

It Is With Literature As With Law Or Empire - An Established Name Is An Estate In Tenure, Or A Throne In Possession.

By The Grey Woods, By The Swamp, Where The Toad And Newt Encamp, By The Dismal Tarns And Pools, Where Dwell The Gouls. By Each Spot The Most Unholy, By Each Nook Most Melancholy, There The Traveller Meets, Aghast, Sheeted Memories Of The Past. Shrouded Forms That Start And Sigh, As They Pass The Wanderer By. White-robed Forms Of Friends Long Given; In Agony, To The Earth - And Heaven.

Fill With Mingled Cream And Amber, I Will Drain That Glass Again. Such Hilarious Visions Clamber Through The Chamber Of My Brain — Quaintest Thoughts — Queerest Fancies Come To Life And Fade Away; What Care I How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

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.

Ah, Broken Is The Golden Bowl! The Spirit Flown Forever! Let The Bell Toll!-a Saintly Soul Floats On The Stygian River; And, Guy De Vere, Hast Thou No Tear?-weep Now Or Nevermore!

There Are Few Persons, Even Among The Calmest Thinkers, Who Have Not Occasionally Been Startled Into A Vague Yet Thrilling Half Credence In The Supernatural, By Coincidences Of So Seemingly Marvellous A Character That, As Mere Coincidences, The Intellect Has Been Unable To Receive Them.

And Travellers, Now, Within That Valley, Through The Red-litten Windows See Vast Forms, That Move Fantastically To A Discordant Melody, While, Like A Ghastly Rapid River, Through The Pale Door A Hideous Throng Rush Out Forever And Laugh — But Smile No More.

And All My Days Are Trances, And All My Nightly Dreams Are Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, And Where Thy Footstep Gleams-- In What Ethereal Dances, By What Eternal Streams!

All Suffering Originates From Craving, From Attachment, From Desire.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

There Was A Discordant Hum Of Human Voices! There Was A Loud Blast As Of Many Trumpets! There Was A Harsh Grating As Of A Thousand Thunders! The Fiery Walls Rushed Back! An Outstretched Arm Caught My Own As I Fell, Fainting, Into The Abyss. It Was That Of General Lasalle. The French Army Had Entered Toledo. The Inquisition Was In The Hands Of Its Enemies.

Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!

Ghastly Grim And Ancient Raven Wandering From The Nightly Shore - Tell Me What Thy Lordly Name Is On The Night's Plutonian Shore! Quoth The Raven, `nevermore.

Life 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.

Believe Only Half Of What You See And Nothing That You Hear.

As A Poet And As A Mathematician, He Would Reason Well; As A Mere Mathematician, He Could Not Have Reasoned At All.

The 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.

Where The Good And The Bad And The Worst And The Best Have Gone To Their Eternal Rest.

The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure, Conveys It In A Borrowed Name: Euphelia Serves To Grace My Measure, But Cloe Is My Real Flame. My Softest Verse, My Darling Lyre Upon Euphelia's Toilet Lay - When Cloe Noted Her Desire That I Should Sing, That I Should Play. My Lyre I Tune, My Voice I Raise, But With My Numbers Mix My Sighs; And Whilst I Sing Euphelia's Praise, I Fix My Soul On Cloe's Eyes. Fair Cloe Blushed; Euphelia Frowned: I Sung, And Gazed; I Played, And Trembled: And Venus To The Loves Around Remarked How Ill We All Dissembled.

As A Viewed Myself In A Fragment Of Looking-glass..., I Was So Impressed With A Sense Of Vague Awe At My Appearance ... That I Was Seized With A Violent Tremour.

There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told.

...the Agony Of My Soul Found Vent In One Loud, Long And Final Scream Of Despair.

If We Examine A Work Of Ordinary Art, By Means Of A Powerful Microscope, All Traces Of Resemblance To Nature Will Disappear - But The Closest Scrutiny Of The Photogenic Drawing Discloses Only A More Absolute Truth, A More Perfect Identity Of Aspect With The Thing Represented.

Yet, Mad Am I Not — And Very Surely Do I Not Dream.

Who Cares How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.

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