Background Image

...

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.

-Edgar Allan Poe

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

How Much More Intense

Edgar Allan Poe

...

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.

Views: 15

Topic

More From Edgar Allan Poe

And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

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

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

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

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!

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

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.

No Pictorial Or Sculptural Combinations Of Points Of Human Loveliness, Do More Than Approach The Living And Breathing Human Beauty As It Gladdens Our Daily Path.

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

The Idea Of God, Infinity, Or Spirit Stands For The Possible Attempt At An Impossible Conception.

A Short Story Is "a Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour, To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal...having Conceived, With Deliberate Care, A Certain Unique Or Single Effect To Be Wrought Out.

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.

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

Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.

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.

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

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.

Tell Me Truly, I Implore-- Is There-- Is There Balm In Gilead?--tell Me--tell Me, I Implore!

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.

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

When A Madman Appears Thoroughly Sane, Indeed, It Is High Time To Put Him In A Straight Jacket.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Believe Me, There Exists No Such Dilemma As That In Which A Gentleman Is Placed When He Is Forced To Reply To A Blackguard.

There Are Certain Themes Of Which The Interest Is All-absorbing, But Which Are Too Entirely Horrible For The Purposes Of Legitimate Fiction.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.

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

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.

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

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

If You Run Out Of Ideas Follow The Road; You'll Get There

In Me Didst Thou Exist-and, In My Death, See By This Image, Which Is Thine Own, How Utterly Thou Hast Murdered Thyself.

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.

It Was Night, And The Rain Fell; And Falling, It Was Rain, But, Having Fallen, It Was Blood.

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.

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

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.

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.

A Poem In My Opinion, Is Opposed To A Work Of Science By Having For Its Immediate Object, Pleasure, Not Truth.

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.

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

How Many Good Books Suffer Neglect Through The Inefficiency Of Their Beginnings!

The Death Of A Beautiful Woman, Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World.

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.

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

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting...

Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And Then There Stole Into My Fancy, Like A Rich Musical Note, The Thought Of What Sweet Rest There Must Be In The Grave.

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee; And The Stars Never Rise But I Feel The Bright Eyes Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee; And So, All The Night-tide, I Lie Down By The Side Of My Darling- My Darling- My Life And My Bride, In The Sepulchre There By The Sea, In Her Tomb By The Sounding Sea.

...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.

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.

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

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

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.

Indeed, There Is An Eloquence In True Enthusiasm That Is Not To Be Doubted.

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...)

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.

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?

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.

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

[the Daguerreotype] Itself Must Undoubtedly Be Regarded As The Most Important, And Perhaps The Most Extraordinary Triumph Of Modern Science.

If You Wish To Forget Anything On The Spot, Make A Note That This Thing Is To Be Remembered.

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

And So, Being Young And Dipt In Folly, I Fell In Love With Melancholy.

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.

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

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.

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.

Even With The Utterly Lost, To Whom Life And Death Are Equally Jests, There Are Matters Of Which No Jest Can Be Made.

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.

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

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

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

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.

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

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

[e]very Plot, Worth The Name, Must Be Elaborated To Its Dénouement Before Anything Be Attempted With The Pen. It Is Only With The Dénouement Constantly In View That We Can Plot Its Indispensable Air Of Consequence, Or Causation, By Making The Incidents, And Especially The Tone At All Points Tend To The Development Of The Intention.

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.

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

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.

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.

The Plots Of God Are Perfect. The Universe Is A Plot Of God.

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.

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.

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

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 Actuated By An Ambition Which I Believe To Be An Honourable One The Ambition Of Serving The Great Cause Of Truth, While Endeavouring To Forward The Literature Of The Country.

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.

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

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.)

I Was A Child And She Was A Child, In This Kingdom By The Sea; But We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love- I And My Annabel Lee; With A Love That The Winged Seraphs Of Heaven Coveted Her And Me.

We Gave The Future To The Winds, And Slumbered Tranquilly In The Present, Weaving The Dull World Around Us Into Dreams.

He Must Be Theory-mad Beyond Redemption Who ... Shall ... Persist In Attempting To Reconcile The Obstinate Oils And Waters Of Poetry And Truth.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

All Religion, My Friend, Is Simply Evolved Out Of Fraud, Fear, Greed, Imagination, And 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.

Words Have No Power To Impress The Mind Without The Exquisite Horror Of Their Reality.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Even For Those To Whom Life And Death Are Equal Jests. There Are Some Things That Are Still Held In Respect.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.

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!)

Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme, To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells, From The Bells, Bells, Bells.

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.

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.

The Greater Amount Of Truth Is Impulsively Uttered; Thus The Greater Amount Is Spoken, Not Written.

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.

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

We Gave Him A Hearty Welcome, For There Was Nearly Half As Much Of The Entertaining As Of The Contemptible About The Man.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Was Never Really Insane Except Upon Occasions When My Heart Was Touched.

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

If A Man Deceives Me Once, Shame On Him; If He Deceives Me Twice, Shame On Me.

Yet I Am Not More Sure That My Soul Lives, Than I Am That Perverseness Is One Of The Primitive Impulses Of The Human Heart - One Of The Indivisible Primary Faculties, Or Sentiments, Which Give Direction To The Character Of Man. Who Has Not, A Hundred Times, Found Himself Committing A Vile Or A Silly Action, For No Other Reason Than Because He Knows He Should Not? Have We Not A Perpetual Inclination, In The Teeth Of Our Best Judgment, To Violate That Which Is Law, Merely Because We Understand It To Be Such?

In Death - No! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost. Else There Is No Immortality For Man. Arousing From The Most Profound Slumbers, We Break The Gossamer Web Of Some Dream. Yet In A Second Afterward, (so Frail May That Web Have Been) We Remember Not That We Have Dreamed.

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.

...if You Do Not Take It Up With You In Some Way, I Shall Be Under The Necessity Of Breaking Your Head With This Shovel

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.

True! - Nervous - Very, Very Nervous I Had Been And Am; But Why Will You Say That I Am Mad?

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

The Nose Of A Mob Is Its Imagination. By This, At Any Time, It Can Be Quietly Led.

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.

There Are Moments When, Even To The Sober Eye Of Reason, The World Of Our Sad Humanity Must Assume The Aspect Of Hell.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

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

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

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.

There Are Two Bodies - The Rudimental And The Complete; Corresponding With The Two Conditions Of The Worm And The Butterfly. What We Call "death," Is But The Painful Metamorphosis. Our Present Incarnation Is Progressive, Preparatory, Temporary. Our Future Is Perfected, Ultimate, Immortal. The Ultimate Life Is The Full Design.

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.

Children Are Never Too Tender To Be Whipped. Like Tough Beefsteaks, The More You Beat Them, The More Tender They Become.

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

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

Melancholy Is ... The Most Legitimate Of All The Poetical Tones.

Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.

We Now Demand The Light Artillery Of The Intellect; We Need The Curt, The Condensed, The Pointed, The Readily Diffused -- In Place Of The Verbose, The Detailed, The Voluminous, The Inaccessible.

Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government - For Dogs

I Have Been Happy, Though In A Dream. I Have Been Happy-and I Love The Theme: Dreams! In Their Vivid Colouring Of Life As In That Fleeting, Shadowy, Misty Strife

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.

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.

And The Raven, Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting, Still Is Sitting On The Pallid Bust Of Pallas Just Above My Chamber Door; And His Eyes Have All The Seeming Of A Demon's That Is Dreaming, And The Lamplight O'er Him Streaming Throws His Shadow On The Floor, And My Soul From Out That Shadow, That Lies Floating On The Floor, Shall Be Lifted - Nevermore.

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.

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.

I Am Above The Weakness Of Seeking To Establish A Sequence Of Cause And Effect, Between The Disaster And The Atrocity.

In One Case Out Of A Hundred A Point Is Excessively Discussed Because It Is Obscure; In The Ninety-nine Remaining It Is Obscure Because It Is Excessively Discussed.

Sometimes I’m Terrified Of My Heart; Of Its Constant Hunger For Whatever It Is It Wants. The Way It Stops And Starts.

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary

I Was Forced To Fall Back Upon The Unsatisfactory Conclusion, That While, Beyond Doubt, There Are Combinations Of Very Simple Natural Objects Which Have The Power Of Thus Affecting Us, Still The Analysis Of This Power Lies Among Considerations Beyond Our Depth. It Was Possible, I Reflected, That A Mere Different Arrangement Of The Particulars Of The Scene, Of The Details Of The Picture, Would Be Sufficient To Modify, Or Perhaps To Annihilate Its Capacity For Sorrowful Impression.

I Have Made No Money. I Am As Poor Now As Ever I Was In My Life - Except In Hope, Which Is By No Means Bankable.

The People Have Nothing To Do With The Laws But To Obey Them.

That Man Is Not Truly Brave Who Is Afraid Either To Seem Or To Be, When It Suits Him, A Coward.

As The Strong Man Exults In His Physical Ability, Delighting In Such Exercises As Call His Muscles Into Action, So Glories The Analyst In That Moral Activity Which Disentangles.

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.

There Are Some Secrets Which Do Not Permit Themselves To Be Told. Men Die Nightly In Their Beds, Wringing The Hands Of Ghostly Confessors, And Looking Them Piteously In The Eyes - Die With Despair Of Heart And Convulsion Of Throat, On Account Of The Hideousness Of Mysteries Which Will Not Suffer Themselves To Be Revealed. Now And Then, Alas, The Conscience Of Man Takes Up A Burden So Heavy In Horror That It Can Be Thrown Down Only Into The Grave. And Thus The Essence Of All Crime Is Undivulged.

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

...for Her Whom In Life Thou Dids't Abhor, In Death Thou Shalt Adore

I Remained Too Much Inside My Head And Ended Up Losing My Mind.

Trending Author

Eric Jerome Dickey

Gertrude Jekyll

Michael Morpurgo

Category