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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

-Edgar Allan Poe

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O, Times! O, Manners!

Edgar Allan Poe

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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

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

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!

Poetry Is The Rhythmical Creation Of Beauty In Words.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

My Next Thought Concerned The Choice Of An Impression, Or Effect, To Be Conveyed: And Here I May As Well Observe That, Throughout The Construction, I Kept Steadily In View The Design.

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

Science Has Not Yet Taught Us If Madness Is Or Is Not The Sublimity Of The Intelligence.

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

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

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

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.

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

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.

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

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

The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.

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.

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

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.

All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream.

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

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.

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.

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.

And Now Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Overacuteness Of The Senses?

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

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.

Yet I Am Not More Sure That My Soul Lives, Than I Am That Perverseness Is One Of The Primitive Impulses Of The Human Heartone Of The Indivisible Primary Faculties, Or Sentiments, Which Give Direction To The Character Of Man.

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.

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

I Was Never Kinder To The Old Man Than During The Whole Week Before I Killed Him.

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.

I Have, Indeed, No Abhorrence Of Danger, Except In Its Absolute Effect - In Terror.

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

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

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

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.

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.

...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.

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

Perched Upon A Bust Of Pallas, Just Above My Chamber Door,- Perched, And Sat, And Nothing More.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

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.

The Generous Critic Fann'd The Poet's Fire, And Taught The World With Reason To Admire.

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.

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.

I Fell In Love With Melancholy

In The Deepest Slumber-no! In Delirium-no! In A Swoon-no! In Death-no! Even In The Grave All Is Not Lost.

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.

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.

Hear The Mellow Wedding Bells, Golden Bells! What A World Of Happiness Their Harmony Foretells Through The Balmy Air Of Night How They Ring Out Their Delight! From The Molten Golden Notes, And All In Tune What A Liquid Ditty Floats To The Turtle-dove That Listens While She Gloats On The Moon!

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

If Any Ambitious Man Have A Fancy To Revolutionize, At One Effort, The Universal World Of Human Thought, Human Opinion, And Human Sentiment, The Opportunity Is His Own -- The Road To Immortal Renown Lies Straight, Open, And Unencumbered Before Him. All That He Has To Do Is To Write And Publish A Very Little Book. Its Title Should Be Simple -- A Few Plain Words -- My Heart Laid Bare. But -- This Little Book Must Be True To Its Title.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.

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

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.

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

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

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.

If We Cannot Comprehend God In His Visible Works, How Then In His Inconceivable Thoughts, That Call The Works Into Being?

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

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.

To Elevate The Soul, Poetry Is Necessary.

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

Books, Indeed, Were His Sole Luxuries

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

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

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

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

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.

And Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Over-acuteness Of The Sense? --now, I Say, There Came To My Ears A Low, Dull, Quick Sound, Such As A Watch Makes When Enveloped In Cotton. I Knew That Sound Well, Too. It Was The Beating Of The Old Man's Heart. It Increased My Fury, As The Beating Of A Drum Stimulates The Soldier Into Courage.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Am Walking Like A Bewitched Corpse, With The Certainty Of Being Eaten By The Infinite, Of Being Annulled By The Only Existing Absurd.

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.

The Believer Is Happy. The Doubter Is Wise.

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

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

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

I Felt That I Breathed An Atmosphere Of Sorrow.

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

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

That The Play Is The Tragedy, “man,” And Its Hero, The Conqueror Worm.

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

Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.

Man's Real Life Is Happy, Chiefly Because He Is Ever Expecting That It Soon Will Be So.

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.

No Murmur Arose From Its Bed, And So Gently It Wandered Along, That The Pearly Pebbles Upon Which We Loved To Gaze, Far Down Within Its Bosom, Stirred Not At All, But Lay In A Motionless Content, Each In Its Own Old Station, Shining On Gloriously Forever.

I Became Insane, With Long Intervals Of Horrible Sanity.

A Short Story Must Have A Single Mood And Every Sentence Must Build Towards It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness.

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

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.

It Is The Curse Of A Certain Order Of Mind, That It Can Never Rest Satisfied With The Consciousness Of Its Ability To Do A Thing.still Less Is It Content With Doing It. It Must Both Know And Show How It Was Done.

And I Fell Violently On My Face.

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...)

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

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.

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.

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

Democracy Is A Very Admirable Form Of Government - For Dogs

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

Tell A Scoundrel, Three Or Four Times A Day, That He Is The Pink Of Probity, And You Make Him At Least The Perfection Of "respectability" In Good Earnest. On The Other Hand, Accuse An Honorable Man, Too Petinaciously, Of Being A Villain, And You Fill Him With A Perverse Ambition To Show You That You Are Not Altogether In The Wrong.

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

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

We Had Always Dwelled Together, Beneath A Tropical Sun, In The Valley Of The Many Colored Grass.

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 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.

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

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

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

Yes," I Said, "for The Love Of God!

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

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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!

For My Own Part, I Have Never Had A Thought Which I Could Not Set Down In Words, With Even More Distinctness Than That With Which I Conceived It.

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

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

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

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.

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

Thy Soul Shall Find Itself Alone ’mid Dark Thoughts Of The Gray Tombstone— Not One, Of All The Crowd, To Pry Into Thine Hour Of Secrecy. Be Silent In That Solitude, Which Is Not Loneliness—for Then The Spirits Of The Dead Who Stood In Life Before Thee Are Again In Death Around Thee—and Their Will Shall Overshadow Thee: Be Still. [...]

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?

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

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

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

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

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

It Would Be Mockery To Call Such Dreariness Heaven At All.

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

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.

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

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

I Have Before Suggested That A Genuine Blackguard Is Never Without A Pocket-handkerchief.

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

I Dread The Events Of The Future, Not In Themselves But In Their Results.

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.

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

This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

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.

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.

Stupidity Is A Talent For Misconception.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

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, 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Never To Suffer Would Have Been Never To Have Been Blessed.

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

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!

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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