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

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

Understanding the Quote: "it all depends on the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of..."

This quote by Edgar Allan Poe reflects deeply on the theme of loser. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Loser, Depends, Robbers, 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 loser and depends. 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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Loser
Depends
Robbers
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Man Is An Animal That Diddles, And There Is No Animal That Diddles But Man.
Animal
Thoughtful
Men
Believe Only Half Of What You See And Nothing That You Hear.
Truth
Halloween
Believe
Yes I Now Feel That It Was Then On That Evening Of Sweet Dreams- That The Very First Dawn Of Human Love Burst Upon The Icy Night Of My Spirit. Since That Period I Have Never Seen Nor Heard Your Name Without A Shiver Half Of Delight Half Of Anxiety.
Dream
Sweet
Night
As A Poet And As A Mathematician, He Would Reason Well; As A Mere Mathematician, He Could Not Have Reasoned At All.
Reason
Poet
Mathematician
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.
Struggle
Player
Mind
Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.
Beauty
Thoughtful
Poetry
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
Every Moment Of The Night Forever Changing Places And They Put Out The Star-light With The Breath From Their Pale Faces
Stars
Night
Light
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.
Depression
Exercise
Night
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.
Life
Art
Simple
A Poem In My Opinion, Is Opposed To A Work Of Science By Having For Its Immediate Object, Pleasure, Not Truth.
Science
Opinion
Pleasure
Take Thy Beak From Out My Heart, And Take Thy Form From Off My Door!” Quoth The Raven, “nevermore.
Heart
Doors
Ravens
Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.
Memories
Remembrance
Perverseness
Over The Mountains Of The Moon, Down The Valley Of The Shadow, Ride, Boldly Ride," The Shade Replied,- "if You Seek For Eldorado.
Moon
Shadow
Mountain
Of Puns It Has Been Said That Those Who Most Dislike Them Are Those Who Are Least Able To Utter Them.
Able
Said
Punning
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.
Stars
Distance
Science
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.
Heart
Eye
Men
Melancholy Is ... The Most Legitimate Of All The Poetical Tones.
Poetry
Tone
Melancholy
I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.
Atmosphere
Sorrow
Melancholy
The Rain Came Down Upon My Head - Unshelter'd. And The Wind Rendered Me Mad And Deaf And Blind.
Rain
Wind
Mad
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
Sweet
Children
Pain
True! - Nervous - Very, Very Nervous I Had Been And Am; But Why Will You Say That I Am Mad?
Mad
Nervous
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.
Strong
Exercise
Men
The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.
Lying
Mountain
Depth
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.
Men
Appreciate
Genius
I Am Walking Like A Bewitched Corpse, With The Certainty Of Being Eaten By The Infinite, Of Being Annulled By The Only Existing Absurd.
Infinite
Absurd
Certainty
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
Sunshine
Joy
Sorrow
..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
Mind
Causes
Bears
I Was Never Really Insane Except Upon Occasions When My Heart Was Touched.
Heart
Insane
Mental Health
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
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.
Book
Philosophical
Europe
Man's Real Life Is Happy, Chiefly Because He Is Ever Expecting That It Soon Will Be So.
Life
Happiness
Real
Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries
Book
Luxury
Sole
A Lie Travels Round The World While Truth Is Putting Her Boots On.
Lying
Boots
World
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.
Guinea
Notes
Should
From A Proud Tower In The Town, Death Looks Gigantically Down.
Death
Towers
Looks
In For Ever Knowing, We Are For Ever Blessed; But To Know All Were The Curse Of A Fiend
Blessed
Knowing
Curse
The Death Of A Beautiful Woman, Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World.
Beautiful
Death
Thoughtful
In The Deepest Slumber-no! In Delirium-no! In A Swoon-no! In Death-no! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost.
Slumber
Delirium
Lost
You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.
Fire
Agony
Desire
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.
Block
Illustration
Class
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.
Voice
Dwelling
Departed
Imperceptibly The Love Of These Discords Grew Upon Me As My Love Of Music Grew Stronger.
Stronger
Music Love
Grew
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.
Night
Names
Ravens
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
A Wrong Is Unredressed When Retribution Overtakes Its Redresser. It Is Equally Unredressed When The Avenger Fails To Make Himself Felt As Such To Him Who Has Done The Wrong.
Revenge
Done
Failing
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
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.
Passion
Impatient
Plunge
For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee
Beautiful
Dream
Moon
Reality Is The #1 Cause Of Insanity Among Those Who Are In Contact With It
Reality
Insanity
Causes
They Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night.
Love
Inspirational
Life
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.
Glasses
Appearance
Violent
I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect - In Terror.
Literature
Danger
Terror
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
Even For Those To Whom Life And Death Are Equal Jests. There Are Some Things That Are Still Held In Respect.
Life And Death
Equal
Stills
Yet, Mad Am I Not — And Very Surely Do I Not Dream.
Dream
Mad
Sanity
The Pioneers And Missionaries Of Religion Have Been The Real Cause Of More Trouble And War Than All Other Classes Of Mankind.
Real
War
Class
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
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
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
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 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
Real
Eye
The Thousand Injuries Of Fortunato I Had Borne As I Best Could, But When He Ventured Upon Insult I Vowed Revenge. You, Who So Well Know The Nature Of My Soul, Will Not Suppose, However, That Gave Utterance To A Threat. At Length I Would Be Avenged; This Was A Point Definitely, Settled --but The Very Definitiveness With Which It Was Resolved Precluded The Idea Of Risk. I Must Not Only Punish But Punish With Impunity. A Wrong Is Unredressed When Retribution Overtakes Its Redresser. It Is Equally Unredressed When The Avenger Fails To Make Himself Felt As Such To Him Who Has Done The Wrong.
Revenge
Ideas
Soul
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?
Silly
Heart
Character
The Most Natural, And, Consequently, The Truest And Most Intense Of The Human Affections Are Those Which Arise In The Heart As If By Electric Sympathy.
Heart
Affection
Intense
Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.
Halloween
Reality
Invisible
Where The Good And The Bad And The Worst And The Best Have Gone To Their Eternal Rest.
Gone
Worst
Eternal
A Fearful Instance Of The Ill Consequences Attending Upon Irascibility - Alive, With The Qualifications Of The Dead - Dead, With The Propensities Of The Living - An Anomaly On The Face Of The Earth - Being Very Calm, Yet Breathless.
Anomalies
Alive
Earth
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.
Funny
Pain
Memories
Every Poem Should Remind The Reader That They Are Going To Die.
Should
Reader
Dies
Marking A Book Is Literally An Experience Of Your Differences Or Agreements With The Author. It Is The Highest Respect You Can Pay Him.
Book
Agreement
Differences
Years Of Love Have Been Forgot, In The Hatred Of A Minute.
Love
Life
Marriage
Boston: Their Hotels Are Bad. Their Pumpkin Pies Are Delicious. Their Poetry Is Not So Good.
Boston
Pie
Pumpkin
And Because Our Reason Violently Deters Us From The Brink, Therefore, Do We The More Impetuously Approach It. There Is No Passion In Nature So Demoniacally Impatient, As That Of Him, Who Shuddering Upon The Edge Of A Precipice, Thus Meditates A Plunge. To Indulge For A Moment, In Any Attempt At Thought, Is To Be Inevitably Lost; For Reflection But Urges Us To Forbear, And Therefore It Is, I Say, That We Cannot. If There Be No Friendly Arm To Check Us, Or If We Fail In A Sudden Effort To Prostrate Ourselves Backward From The Abyss, We Plunge, And Are Destroyed.
Passion
Reflection
Effort
After Reading All That Has Been Written, And After Thinking All That Can Be Thought, On The Topics Of God And The Soul, The Man Who Has A Right To Say That He Thinks At All, Will Find Himself Face To Face With The Conclusion That, On These Topics, The Most Profound Thought Is That Which Can Be The Least Easily Distinguished From The Most Superficial Sentiment.
God
Reading
Men
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.
Book
Ill Will
Criticism
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.
Wine
Feelings
Frogs
If A Poem Hasn't Ripped Apart Your Soul; You Haven't Experienced Poetry.
Soul
Torn Apart
Havens
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.
Taste
Creation
Sole
If You Wish To Forget Anything On The Spot, Make A Note That This Thing Is To Be Remembered.
Funny Life
Wish
Forget
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.
Dream
Night
Evil
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!
Strength
Song
Failure
And So Faintly You Came Tapping, Tapping At My Chamber Door, That I Scarce Was Sure I Heard You"— Here I Opened Wide The Door; — Darkness There, And Nothing More.
Doors
Darkness
Heard
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
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
Vision
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
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
I Have Before Suggested That A Genuine Blackguard Is Never Without A Pocket-handkerchief.
Pockets
Genuine
Handkerchiefs
The Plots Of God Are Perfect. The Universe Is A Plot Of God.
Perfect
Plot
Universe
There Was An Iciness, A Sinking, A Sickening Of The Heart - An Unredeemed Dreariness Of Thought Which No Goading Of The Imagination Could Torture Into Aught Of The Sublime
Heart
Imagination
Sublime
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.
Depression
Spring
Science
...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.
Moon
Color
Feet
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.
Book
Evil
Age
In Efforts To Soar Above Our Nature, We Invariably Fall Below It.
Fall
Effort
Soar
Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.
Gossip
Catchy
Once Upon A Midnight Dreary
Midnight
Dreary
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
Perched Upon A Bust Of Pallas, Just Above My Chamber Door,- Perched, And Sat, And Nothing More.
Doors
Justice
Sat
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
Let My Heart Be Still A Moment And This Mystery Explore.
Heart
Mystery
Moments
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
This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.
Love
Famous Love
Maidens
He Must Be Theory-mad Beyond Redemption Who ... Shall ... Persist In Attempting To Reconcile The Obstinate Oils And Waters Of Poetry And Truth.
Oil And Water
Mad
Poetry
But Our Love Was Stronger By Far Than The Love Of Those Who Were Older Than We Of Many Far Wiser Than We And Neither The Angels In Heaven Above, Nor The Demons Down Under The Sea, Can Ever Dissever My Soul From The Soul Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee.
Beautiful
Angel
Sea
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.
Heart
Doors
Purple
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.
Light
Needs
Demand
We Allude To The Short Prose Narrative, Requiring From A Half Hour To One Or Two Hours In Its Perusal
Two
Half
Narrative
Experience Has Shown, And A True Philosophy Will Always Show, That A Vast, Perhaps The Larger Portion Of The Truth Arises From The Seemingly Irrelevant.
Truth
Philosophy
Irrelevance
Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.
Stupid
Silly
Ignorance
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.
Dream
Lying
Eye
To Die Laughing Must Be The Most Glorious Of All Glorious Deaths!
Laughing
Glorious
Dies
Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.
Slumber
Lost
Pendulums
It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.
Ciphers
May
Resolve
And So, Being Young And Dipt In Folly, I Fell In Love With Melancholy.
Love
Inspirational
Life
[the Daguerreotype] Itself Must Undoubtedly Be Regarded As The Most Important, And Perhaps The Most Extraordinary Triumph Of Modern Science.
Important
Triumph
Daguerreotypes
Who Cares How Time Advances? I Am Drinking Ale Today.
Drinking
Beer
Alcohol
Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered Weak And Weary.
Midnight
Literature
Weak
Decorum -- That Bug-bear Which Deters So Many From Bliss Until The Opportunity For Bliss Has Forever Gone By.
Opportunity
Forever
Gone
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.
Struggle
Soul
Together
Men Have Called Me Mad; But The Question Is Not Yet Settled, Whether Madness Is Or Is Not The Loftiest Intelligence.
Intelligent
Men
Mad
Deep Into That Darkness Peering, Long I Stood There, Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared To Dream Before.
Love
Dream
Art
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!
Beauty
Home
Hair
With Me Poetry Has Not Been A Purpose, But A Passion.
Passion
Poetry
Purpose
Truth Is Not Always In A Well. In Fact, As Regards The More Important Knowledge, I Do Believe That She Is Invariably Superficial. The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.
Lying
Believe
Important
Indeed, There Is An Eloquence In True Enthusiasm That Is Not To Be Doubted.
Enthusiasm
Eloquence
Doubted
There Are Moments When, Even To The Sober Eye Of Reason, The World Of Our Sad Humanity Must Assume The Aspect Of Hell.
Sad
Eye
Humanity
A Million Candles Have Burned Themselves Out. Still I Read On. (montresor)
Burned
Stills
Candle
It Is With Literature As With Law Or Empire - An Established Name Is An Estate In Tenure, Or A Throne In Possession.
Thoughtful
Law
Names
You Will Observe That The Stories Told Are All About Money-seekers, Not About Money-finders.
Stories
Seekers
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
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.
Mad
Disease
Hearing
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
Dream
Fleeting
Vivid
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.
Stars
Moon
Destiny
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.
Sight
Smell
Odor
I Intend To Put Up With Nothing That I Can Put Down.
I Can
A Dirge For Her The Doubly Dead In That She Died So Young.
Young
Died
But Psyche Uplifting Her Finger Said: Sadly This Star I Mistrust
Uplifting
Stars
Said
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.
Dog
Government
Democracy
The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.
Past
Shoes
Legacy
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.
Food
Drinking
Beer
It Is The Nature Of Truth In General, As Of Some Ores In Particular, To Be Richest When Most Superficial.
Thoughtful
Reality
Superficial
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. On The Other Hand, The Lightness Of The Artillery Should Not Degenerate Into Pop-gunnery - By Which Term We May Designate The Character Of The Greater Portion Of The Newspaper Press - Their Sole Legitimate Object Being The Discussion Of Ephemeral Matters In An Ephemeral Manner.
Character
Light
Hands
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.
Sight
Imagination
Vision
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.
Death
Butterfly
Two
And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.
The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness - And Usually Prefers Silence To Saying Something Which Is Not Everything It Should Be.
Communication
Thoughtful
Silence
I Have No Words Alas! To Tell The Loveliness Of Loving Well
Wells
Alas
Loveliness
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.)
Sick
Truth Is
Century
Yes," I Said, "for The Love Of God!
God Love
Said
A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.
Wise
Men
Two
The World Is A Great Ocean, Upon Which We Encounter More Tempestuous Storms Than Calms.
Ocean
Storm
Encounters
Yes, Heaven Is Thine; But This Is A World Of Sweets And Sours; Our Flowers Are Merely—flowers.
Sweet
Flower
Heaven
The Idea Of God, Infinity, Or Spirit Stands For The Possible Attempt At An Impossible Conception.
Ideas
Atheism
Infinity
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.
Love
Heart
Loss
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.
Witty
Style
Execution
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.
Theatre
Acting
Half
Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.
Self
Torture
Thirst
Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.
Blood
Masque
Seals
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
I Am Above The Weakness Of Seeking To Establish A Sequence Of Cause And Effect, Between The Disaster And The Atrocity.
Weakness
Atrocities
Causes
The Eye, Like A Shattered Mirror, Multiplies The Images Of Sorrow
Eye
Mirrors
Sorrow
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.
Distance
Goal
Mind
It Would Be Mockery To Call Such Dreariness Heaven At All.
Heaven
Would Be
Mockery
The Death Then Of A Beautiful Woman Is Unquestionably The Most Poetical Topic In The World, And Equally Is It Beyond Doubt That The Lips Best Suited For Such Topic Are Those Of A Bereaved Lover.
Love
Life
Beautiful
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.
Morning
Eye
Heart
-ev'n With Us The Breath Of Science Dims The Mirror Of Our Joy.
Science
Mirrors
Joy
I Was Never Kinder To The Old Man Than During The Whole Week Before I Killed Him.
Men
Week
Old Man
And Darkness And Decay And The Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.
Darkness
Decay
Red
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.
People
Able
Fats
We Gave The Future To The Winds, And Slumbered Tranquilly In The Present, Weaving The Dull World Around Us Into Dreams.
Dream
Wind
Dull
Sleep, Those Little Slices Of Death — How I Loathe Them.
Death
Sleep
Littles
Villains!' I Shrieked. 'dissemble No More! I Admit The Deed! Tear Up The Planks! Here, Here! It Is The Beating Of His Hideous Heart!
Heart
Guilt
Tears
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
Words Have No Power To Impress The Mind Without The Exquisite Horror Of Their Reality.
Writing
Thoughtful
Reality
In Me Didst Thou Exist-and, In My Death, See By This Image, Which Is Thine Own, How Utterly Thou Hast Murdered Thyself.
Thyself
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
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.
Spring
Self
Forever
False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.
Catchy
False Hope
No Hope
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.'
Art
Nature
Men
Beauty Of Whatever Kind, In Its Supreme Development, Invariably Excites The Sensitive Soul To Tears.
Beauty
Fall
Carpe Diem
I Have Great Faith In Fools,— Self-confidence My Friends Will Call It.
Life
Friendship
Confidence
All Works Of Art Should Begin... At The End.
Art
Ends
Should
The Reproduction Of What The Senses Perceive In Nature Through The Veil Of The Soul.
Soul
Veils
Perceive
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
Never To Suffer Would Have Been Never To Have Been Blessed.
Spiritual
Blessed
Adversity
Lord Help My Poor Soul.
Soul
Helping
Lord
...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
Way
Shovels
Ifs
A Gentleman With A Pug Nose Is A Contradiction In Terms.
Gentleman
Pugs
Noses
The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.
Wise
Doubters
Catchy
...for Her Whom In Life Thou Dids't Abhor, In Death Thou Shalt Adore
Adore
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.
Soul
Titles
Needs
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.
Fashion
Science
Oddities
The People Have Nothing To Do With The Laws But To Obey Them.
Law
People
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.
Sarcasm
Misunderstood
Want
Leave My Loneliness Unbroken
Loneliness
Unbroken
It Was Night, And The Rain Fell; And Falling, It Was Rain, But, Having Fallen, It Was Blood.
Fall
Rain
Night
Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, While I Pondered, Weak And Weary, Over Many A Quaint And Curious Volume Of Forgotten Lore--while I Nodded, Nearly Napping, Suddenly There Came A Tapping, As If Some One Gently Rapping, Rapping At My Chamber Door. "'tis Some Visitor," I Muttered, "tapping At My Chamber Door--only This And Nothing More.
Sad
Rap
Doors
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
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.
Stars
Flower
Gay
All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.
Inspirational
Life
Dream
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