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Believe Only Half Of What You See And Nothing That You Hear.
-Edgar Allan Poe
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Believe Only Half Of

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

Understanding the Quote: "believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear...."

This quote by Edgar Allan Poe reflects deeply on the theme of truth. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Truth, Halloween, Believe, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Edgar Allan Poe interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is celebrated for insightful thoughts on truth and halloween. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Truth
Halloween
Believe
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Years Of Love Have Been Forgot, In The Hatred Of A Minute.
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If We Cannot Comprehend God In His Visible Works, How Then In His Inconceivable Thoughts, That Call The Works Into Being?
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Few Persons Can Be Made To Believe That It Is Not Quite An Easy Thing To Invent A Method Of Secret Writing That Shall Baffle Investigation. Yet It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.
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False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.
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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.'
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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.
Strong
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One 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.
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It Is With Literature As With Law Or Empire - An Established Name Is An Estate In Tenure, Or A Throne In Possession.
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You 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.
Dream
Night
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I Seemed To Be Upon The Verge Of Comprehension, Without The Power To Comprehend As Men, At Time, Find Themselves Upon The Brink Of Rememberance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.
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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.
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To Elevate The Soul, Poetry Is Necessary.
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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!
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Happiness Is Not To Be Found In Knowledge, But In The Acquisition Of Knowledge
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It Will Be Found, In Fact, That The Ingenious Are Always Fanciful, And The Truly Imaginative Never Otherwise Than Analytic.
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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.
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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.
Love
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For Years Your Name Never Passed My Lips, While My Soul Drank In, With A Delirious Thirst, All That Was Uttered In My Presence Respecting You.
Years
Names
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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.
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All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.
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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.
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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.
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I Am Excessively Slothful, And Wonderfully Industrious-by Fits. There Are Epochs When Any Kind Of Mental Exercise Is Torture, And When Nothing Yields Me Pleasure But The Solitary Communion With The 'mountains & The Woods'-the 'altars' Of Byron. I Have Thus Rambled And Dreamed Away Whole Months, And Awake, At Last, To A Sort Of Mania For Composition. Then I Scribble All Day, And Read All Night, So Long As The Disease Endures.
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Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence.
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The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.
World
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Conventional
The Generous Critic Fann'd The Poet's Fire, And Taught The World With Reason To Admire.
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From Childhood's Hour I Have Not Been. As Others Were, I Have Not Seen. As Others Saw, I Could Not Awaken. My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone. And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.
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In The Deepest Slumber-no! In Delirium-no! In A Swoon-no! In Death-no! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost.
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Convinced Myself, I Seek Not To Convince.
Convince
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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.
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From A Proud Tower In The Town, Death Looks Gigantically Down.
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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.
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I Fashion The Expression Of My Face, As Accurately As Possible, In Accordance With The Expression Of His, And Then Wait To See What Thoughts Or Sentiments Arise In My Mind Or Heart, As If To Match Or Correspond With The Expression.
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All Religion, My Friend, Is Simply Evolved Out Of Fraud, Fear, Greed, Imagination, And Poetry.
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I Have Not Only Labored Solely For The Benefit Of Others (receiving For Myself A Miserable Pittance), But Have Been Forced To Model My Thoughts At The Will Of Men Whose Imbecility Was Evident To All But Themselves
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Those Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night. In Their Gray Visions They Obtain Glimpses Of Eternity, And Thrill, In Waking, To Find That They Have Been Upon The Verge Of The Great Secret. In Snatches, They Learn Something Of The Wisdom Which Is Of Good, And More Of The Mere Knowledge Which Is Of Evil.
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There Are Certain Themes Of Which The Interest Is All-absorbing, But Which Are Too Entirely Horrible For The Purposes Of Legitimate Fiction.
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There Are Some Qualities, Some Incorporate Things, That Have A Double Life, Which Thus Is Made. A Type Os Twin Entity Which Springs From Matter And Light, Envinced In Solid And Shade.
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The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.
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A Dirge For Her The Doubly Dead In That She Died So Young.
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Hear The Sledges With The Bells, Silver Bells! What A World Of Merriment Their Melody Foretells! How They Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle, In The Icy Air Of Night, While The Stars That Oversprinkle All The Heavens Seem To Twinkle With A Crystalline Delight: Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells From The Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells-- From The Jingling And The Tingling Of The Bells.
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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.
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If You Are Ever Drowned Or Hung, Be Sure And Make A Note Of Your Sensations.
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I Would Define, In Brief, The Poetry Of Words As The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty. Its Sole Arbiter Is Taste. With The Intellect Or With The Conscience, It Has Only Collateral Relations. Unless Incidentally, It Has No Concern Whatever Either With Duty Or With Truth.
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I Am Above The Weakness Of Seeking To Establish A Sequence Of Cause And Effect, Between The Disaster And The Atrocity.
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Me Volví Loco, Con Largos Intervalos De Horrible Cordura.
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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.
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There Are Moments When, Even To The Sober Eye Of Reason, The World Of Our Sad Humanity Must Assume The Aspect Of Hell.
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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.
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It Is A Happiness To Wonder; -- It Is A Happiness To Dream.
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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.
Memories
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When A Madman Appears Thoroughly Sane, Indeed, It Is High Time To Put Him In A Straight Jacket.
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If A Man Deceives Me Once, Shame On Him; If He Deceives Me Twice, Shame On Me.
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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.
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And Now Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Overacuteness Of The Senses?
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Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.
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In Me Didst Thou Exist-and, In My Death, See By This Image, Which Is Thine Own, How Utterly Thou Hast Murdered Thyself.
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Marking A Book Is Literally An Experience Of Your Differences Or Agreements With The Author. It Is The Highest Respect You Can Pay Him.
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Men
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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.
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The Fever Called "living" Is Conquer'd At Last.
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Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government - For Dogs
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If 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.
Sky
Might
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How Many Good Books Suffer Neglect Through The Inefficiency Of Their Beginnings!
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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.
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The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.
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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.
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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!
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Yet, Mad Am I Not — And Very Surely Do I Not Dream.
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It Would Be Mockery To Call Such Dreariness Heaven At All.
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A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.
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Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.
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There Are Chords In The Hearts Of The Most Reckless Which Cannot Be Touched Without Emotion.
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Long
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.
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I Have No Words Alas! To Tell The Loveliness Of Loving Well
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Loveliness
Yet 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.
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Passion
Fate
Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme, To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells, From The Bells, Bells, Bells.
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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.
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In Efforts To Soar Above Our Nature, We Invariably Fall Below It.
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Effort
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Let My Heart Be Still A Moment And This Mystery Explore.
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Mystery
Moments
Imperceptibly The Love Of These Discords Grew Upon Me As My Love Of Music Grew Stronger.
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Music Love
Grew
That Is Another Of Your Odd Notions," Said The Prefect, Who Had A Fashion Of Calling Every Thing "odd" That Was Beyond His Comprehension, And Thus Lived Amid An Absolute Legion Of "oddities.
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Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows Follow Sweet Children I'll Show Thee The Way Through All The Pain And The Sorrows Weep Not Poor Childlen For Life Is This Way Murdering Beauty And Passions Hush Now Dear Children It Must Be This Way To Weary Of Life And Deceptions Rest Now My Children For Soon We'll Away Into The Calm And The Quiet Come Little Children I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment Come Little Children The Time's Come To Play Here In My Garden Of Shadows
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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.
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Army
Hands
As A Poet And As A Mathematician, He Would Reason Well; As A Mere Mathematician, He Could Not Have Reasoned At All.
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Poet
Mathematician
Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.
Gossip
Catchy
The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.
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Mountain
Depth
Ah, Distinctly I Remember It Was In The Bleak December; And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor. Eagerly, I Wished The Morrow; - Vainly I Had Sought To Borrow From My Books Surcease Of Sorrow - Sorrow For The Lost Leonore - For The Rare And Radiant Maiden Who The Angels Name Lenore - Nameless Here For Evermore.
Book
Angel
Names
I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.
Atmosphere
Sorrow
Melancholy
And I Fell Violently On My Face.
Faces
Yes, Heaven Is Thine; But This Is A World Of Sweets And Sours; Our Flowers Are Merely—flowers.
Sweet
Flower
Heaven
It Was Night, And The Rain Fell; And Falling, It Was Rain, But, Having Fallen, It Was Blood.
Fall
Rain
Night
They Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night.
Love
Inspirational
Life
I Was Never Really Insane Except Upon Occasions When My Heart Was Touched.
Heart
Insane
Mental Health
We Had Always Dwelled Together, Beneath A Tropical Sun, In The Valley Of The Many Colored Grass.
Together
Valleys
Sun
Words Have No Power To Impress The Mind Without The Exquisite Horror Of Their Reality.
Writing
Thoughtful
Reality
The Most 'popular,' The Most 'successful' Writers Among Us (for A Brief Period, At Least) Are, 99 Times Out Of A Hundred, Persons Of Mere Effrontery-in A Word, Busy-bodies, Toadies, Quacks.
Successful
Body
Toady
It Is Clear That A Poem May Be Improperly Brief. Undue Brevity Degenerates Into Mere Epigrammatism. A Very Short Poem, While Now And Then Producing A Brilliant Or Vivid, Never Produces A Profound Or Enduring, Effect. There Must Be The Steady Pressing Down Of The Stamp Upon The Wax.
Profound
Poetry
May
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.
Believe
Thinking
Effort
-ev'n With Us The Breath Of Science Dims The Mirror Of Our Joy.
Science
Mirrors
Joy
The Usual Derivation Of The Word Metaphysics Is Not To Be Sustainedthe Science Is Supposed To Take Its Name From Its Superiority To Physics. The Truth Is, That Aristotle's Treatise On Morals Is Next In Succession To His Book Of Physics.
Book
Science
Names
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
Believe
Mean
Men
The Plots Of God Are Perfect. The Universe Is A Plot Of God.
Perfect
Plot
Universe
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.
Progressive
States
Discourse
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.
Dream
Dark
Night
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.
Summer
Heart
Sun
And So, Being Young And Dipt In Folly, I Fell In Love With Melancholy.
Love
Inspirational
Life
In Our Endeavors To Recall To Memory Something Long Forgotten, We Often Find Ourselves Upon The Very Verge Of Remembrance, Without Being Able, In The End, To Remember.
Memories
Long
Remembrance
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.
Beauty
Beautiful
Intense
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!
Age
Silver
Crime
It 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.
Ideas
Meditation
Mind
I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect - In Terror.
Literature
Danger
Terror
I Intend To Put Up With Nothing That I Can Put Down.
I Can
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
Errors
Profound
Pieces
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.
Dream
Memories
Dark
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.
Heart
Mean
Men
If A Poem Hasn't Ripped Apart Your Soul; You Haven't Experienced Poetry.
Soul
Torn Apart
Havens
I Call To Mind Flatness And Dampness; And Then All Is Madness - The Madness Of A Memory Which Busies Itself Among Forbidden Things.
Memories
Mind
Madness
[the Daguerreotype] Itself Must Undoubtedly Be Regarded As The Most Important, And Perhaps The Most Extraordinary Triumph Of Modern Science.
Important
Triumph
Daguerreotypes
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.
Lonely
Angel
Night
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?
Life
Dream
Lonely
There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told.
Secret
Permit
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.
Inspiring
Death
Past
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.
Song
Writing
Thinking
I Have Great Faith In Fools,— Self-confidence My Friends Will Call It.
Life
Friendship
Confidence
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.
Writing
Creative
Intuition
The World Is A Great Ocean, Upon Which We Encounter More Tempestuous Storms Than Calms.
Ocean
Storm
Encounters
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.
Simple
Poetry
May
I Fell In Love With Melancholy
Melancholy
Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There, Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared To Dream Before.
Love
Dream
Art
It May Well Be Doubted Whether Human Ingenuity Can Construct An Enigma... Which Human Ingenuity May Not, By Proper Application, Resolve.
Doubt
May
Enigma
The Death Of A Beautiful Woman, Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World.
Beautiful
Death
Thoughtful
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.
Memories
Character
Long Ago
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.
Regret
Wish
Desire
Beauty Of Whatever Kind, In Its Supreme Development, Invariably Excites The Sensitive Soul To Tears.
Beauty
Fall
Carpe Diem
The Ninety And Nine Are With Dreams, Content But The Hope Of The World Made New, Is The Hundredth Man Who Is Grimly Bent On Making Those Dreams Come True.
Life
Dream
Inspiration
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.
Unity
Fiction
Sitting
Boston: Their Hotels Are Bad. Their Pumpkin Pies Are Delicious. Their Poetry Is Not So Good.
Boston
Pie
Pumpkin
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!)
Men
Age
Matter
All Suffering Originates From Craving, From Attachment, From Desire.
Attachment
Suffering
Desire
With Me Poetry Has Not Been A Purpose, But A Passion.
Passion
Poetry
Purpose
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.
Book
Appreciate
Analysis
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.
Race
America
Bostonians
A Mystery, And A Dream, Should My Early Life Seem.
Dream
Mystery
Should
For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee
Beautiful
Dream
Moon
I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves But In Their Results.
Events
Results
Dread
I Was Never Kinder To The Old Man Than During The Whole Week Before I Killed Him.
Men
Week
Old Man
You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.
Fire
Agony
Desire
Finally On Sunday Morning, October 7, 1849, "he Became Quiet And Seemed To Rest For A Short Time. Then, Gently, Moving His Head," He Said, "lord Help My Poor Soul." As He Had Lived So He Died-in Great Misery And Tragedy.
Life
Morning
Moving
To Be Thoroughly Conversant With Man’s Heart, Is To Take Our Final Lesson In The Iron-clasped Volume Of Despair
Heart
Men
Iron
How Much More Intense Is The Excitement Wrought In The Feelings Of A Crowd By The Contemplation Of Human Agony, Than That Brought About By The Most Appalling Spectacles Of Inanimate Matter.
Agony
Feelings
Crowds
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.
Dream
Future
Mean
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.
Fall
Gay
Night
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.
Power
Simple
Men
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.
Gay
Flames
Darkness
Either The Memory Of Past Bliss Is The Anguish Of To-day; Or The Agonies Which Are Have Their Origins In Ecstasies Which Might Have Been.
Memories
Past
Agony
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.
Night
Talking
Your Side
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.
Player
Analogies
Chess
Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.
Art
Looks
Criticize
But Evil Things, In Robes Of Sorrow, Assailed The Monarch's High Estate; (ah, Let Us Mourn, For Never Morrow Shall Dawn Upon Him Desolate!) And Round About His Home The Glory That Blushed And Bloomed, Is But A Dim-remembered Story Of The Old Time Entombed.
Home
Evil
Sorrow
The Scariest Monsters Are The Ones That Lurk Within Our Souls.
Soul
Monsters
In 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.
Lying
Believe
Essence
The Higher Powers Of The Reflective Intellect Are More Decidedly And More Usefully Tasked By The Unostentatious Game Of Draughts Than By All The Elaborate Frivolity Of Chess.
Reflection
Games
Chess
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.
Character
Half
Coincidence
The Fury Of A Demon Instantly Possessed Me. I Knew Myself No Longer. My Original Soul Seemed, At Once, To Take Its Flight From My Body; And A More Than Fiendish Malevolence, Gin-nurtured, Thrilled Every Fibre Of My Frame.
Soul
Body
Flight
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.
Passion
Eye
Purpose
...the Agony Of My Soul Found Vent In One Loud, Long And Final Scream Of Despair.
Agony
Long
Soul
Prophet!" Said I, "thing Of Evil! - Prophet Still, If Bird Or Devil! By That Heaven That Bends Above Us- By That God We Both Adore- Tell This Soul With Sorrow Laden If, Within The Distant Aidenn, It Shall Clasp A Sainted Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore- Clasp A Rare And Radiant Maiden Whom The Angels Name Lenore." Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.
Angel
Names
Ravens
Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.
Beauty
Thoughtful
Scary
I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.
Inspirational
Life
Writing
Ceux Qui Revent Eveilles Ont Conscience De 1000 Choses Qui Echapent A Ceux Qui Ne Revent Qu'endormis. The One Who Has Day Dream Are Aware Of 1000 Things That The One Who Dreams Only When He Sleeps Will Never Understand. (it Sounds Better In French, I Do What I Can With My Translation...)
Dream
Sleep
Sound
Reality Is The #1 Cause Of Insanity Among Those Who Are In Contact With It
Reality
Insanity
Causes
Deep In Earth My Love Is Lying And I Must Weep Alone.
Sad
Lying
Love Is
The People Have Nothing To Do With The Laws But To Obey Them.
Law
People
And My Soul From Out That Shadow That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted -- Nevermore!
Halloween
Lying
Ravens
Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.
Stupid
Silly
Ignorance
Let Us Dismiss, As Irrelevant To The Poem Per Se, The Circumstance ... Which, In The First Place, Gave Rise To The Intention Of Composing A Poem That Should Suit At Once The Popular And The Critical Taste.
Rose
Taste
Firsts
Of Puns It Has Been Said That Those Who Most Dislike Them Are Those Who Are Least Able To Utter Them.
Able
Said
Punning
A Lie Travels Round The World While Truth Is Putting Her Boots On.
Lying
Boots
World
The Rudiment Of Verse May, Possibly, Be Found In The Spondee.
May
Found
Verses
True! - Nervous - Very, Very Nervous I Had Been And Am; But Why Will You Say That I Am Mad?
Mad
Nervous
Leave My Loneliness Unbroken
Loneliness
Unbroken
Where The Good And The Bad And The Worst And The Best Have Gone To Their Eternal Rest.
Gone
Worst
Eternal
All Works Of Art Should Begin... At The End.
Art
Ends
Should
A Fool, For Example, Thinks Shakespeare A Great Poet . . . Yet The Fool Has Never Read Shakespeare.
Thinking
Example
Fool
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