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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.

-Edgar Allan Poe

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There Is Then No

Edgar Allan Poe

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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.

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Those Who Dream By Day Are Cognizant Of Many Things Which Escape Those Who Dream Only By Night. In Their Gray Visions They Obtain Glimpses Of Eternity, And Thrill, In Waking, To Find That They Have Been Upon The Verge Of The Great Secret. In Snatches, They Learn Something Of The Wisdom Which Is Of Good, And More Of The Mere Knowledge Which Is Of Evil.

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

Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost.

A Strong Argument For The Religion Of Christ Is This - That Offences Against Charity Are About The Only Ones Which Men On Their Death-beds Can Be Made - Not To Understand - But To Feel - As Crime.

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.

Every Poem Should Remind The Reader That They Are Going To Die.

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

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

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

If The Propositions Of This Discourse Are Tenable, The "state Of Progressive Collapse" Is Precisely That State In Which Alone We Are Warranted In Considering All Things.

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

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

The Past Is A Pebble In My Shoe.

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.

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.

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

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

The Goodness Of Your True Pun Is In The Direct Ratio Of Its Intolerability.

It Will Be Found, In Fact, That The Ingenious Are Always Fanciful, And The Truly Imaginative Never Otherwise Than Analytic.

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.

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.

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

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.

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?

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

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.

With Me Poetry Has Not Been A Purpose, But A Passion.

Mournful And Never-ending Remembrance.

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

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

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

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

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

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

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

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

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.

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.

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

...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.

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.

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.)

Perversity Is The Human Thirst For Self-torture.

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

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

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.

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

Out- Out Are The Lights- Out All! And, Over Each Quivering Form, The Curtain, A Funeral Pall, Comes Down With The Rush Of A Storm, While The Angels, All Pallid And Wan, Uprising, Unveiling, Affirm That The Play Is The Tragedy, "man," And Its Hero The Conqueror Worm.

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

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.

Either The Memory Of Past Bliss Is The Anguish Of To-day; Or The Agonies Which Are Have Their Origins In Ecstasies Which Might Have Been.

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

Art Is To Look At Not To Criticize.

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. [...]

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

To Observe Attentively Is To Remember Distinctly.

..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

I Have No Faith In Human Perfectability. I Think That Human Exertion Will Have No Appreciable Effect Upon Humanity. Man Is Now Only More Active - Not More Happy - Nor More Wise, Than He Was 6000 Years Ago.

Let Us Dismiss, As Irrelevant To The Poem Per Se, The Circumstance ... Which, In The First Place, Gave Rise To The Intention Of Composing A Poem That Should Suit At Once The Popular And The Critical Taste.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Scariest Monsters Are The Ones That Lurk Within Our Souls.

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

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.

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.

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Decorum -- That Bug-bear Which Deters So Many From Bliss Until The Opportunity For Bliss Has Forever Gone By.

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.

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.

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.

Grammar Is The Analysis Of Language.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

As An Individual, I Myself Feel Impelled To Fancy ... A Limitless Succession Of Universes.... Each Exists, Apart And Independently, In The Bosom Of Its Proper And Particular God.

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

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.

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

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.'

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

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

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

A Man's Grammar, Like Caesar's Wife, Must Not Only Be Pure, But Above Suspicion Of Impurity.

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

If I Could Dwell Where Israfel Hath Dwelt And He Where I He Might Not Sing So Wildly Well A Mortal Melody While A Bolder Note Then This Might Swell From My Lyre In The Sky.

A Mystery, And A Dream, Should My Early Life Seem.

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

From A Proud Tower In The Town, Death Looks Gigantically Down.

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.

Of Puns It Has Been Said That Those Who Most Dislike Them Are Those Who Are Least Able To Utter Them.

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.

To Vilify A Great Man Is The Readiest Way In Which A Little Man Can Himself Attain Greatness.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Over The Mountains Of The Moon, Down The Valley Of The Shadow, Ride, Boldly Ride," The Shade Replied,- "if You Seek For Eldorado.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

And 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Me Volví Loco, Con Largos Intervalos De Horrible Cordura.

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.

A Wise Man Hears One Word And Understands Two.

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

Not Hear It? --yes, I Hear It, And Have Heard It. Long --long --long --many Minutes, Many Hours, Many Days, Have I Heard It --yet I Dared Not --oh, Pity Me, Miserable Wretch That I Am! --i Dared Not --i Dared Not Speak! We Have Put Her Living In The Tomb!

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

Convinced Myself, I Seek Not To Convince.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

I Was Cautious In What I Said Before The Young Lady; For I Could Not Be Sure That She Was Sane; And, In Fact, There Was A Certain Restless Brilliancy About Her Eyes That Half Led Me To Imagine She Was Not.

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

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

And All I Loved, I Loved Alone.

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.

In Criticism I Will Be Bold, And As Sternly, Absolutely Just With Friend And Foe. From This Purpose Nothing Shall Turn Me.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

There Was Much Of The Beautiful, Much Of The Wanton, Much Of The Bizarre, Something Of The Terrible, And Not A Little Of That Which Might Have Excited Disgust.

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