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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?

-Edgar Allan Poe

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Yet I Am Not

Edgar Allan Poe

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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?

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Few Persons Can Be Made To Believe That It Is Not Quite An Easy Thing To Invent A Method Of Secret Writing That Shall Baffle Investigation. Yet It May Be Roundly Asserted That Human Ingenuity Cannot Concoct A Cipher Which Human Ingenuity Cannot Resolve.

...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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

If Any Ambitious Man Have A Fancy To Revolutionize, At One Effort, The Universal World Of Human Thought, Human Opinion, And Human Sentiment.

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

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.

It Was Many And Many A Year Ago, In A Kingdom By The Sea, That A Maiden There Lived Whom You May Know By The Name Of Annabel Lee;-- And This Maiden She Lived With No Other Thought Than To Love And Be Loved By Me.

Beauty Is The Sole Legitimate Province Of The Poem.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Invisible Things Are The Only Realities.

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.

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

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.

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

All Works Of Art Should Begin... At The End.

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

Literature Is The Most Noble Of Professions. In Fact, It Is About The Only One Fit For A Man.

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

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

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.

Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

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?

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.

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

Lord Help My Poor Soul.

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.

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

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

The True Genius Shudders At Incompleteness - And Usually Prefers Silence To Saying Something Which Is Not Everything It Should Be.

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

For The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams Of The Beautiful Annabel Lee

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Those Who Gossip With You Will Gossip About You.

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

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.

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

And All My Days Are Trances, And All My Nightly Dreams Are Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, And Where Thy Footstep Gleams-- In What Ethereal Dances, By What Eternal Streams!

And Each Separate Dying Ember Wrought Its Ghost Upon The Floor.

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

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

Blood Was Its Avatar And Its Seal.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The Customs Of The World Are So Many Conventional Follies.

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

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

False Hope Is Nicer Than No Hope At All.

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.

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

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

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.

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

We Loved With A Love That Was More Than Love.

It May Well Be Doubted Whether Human Ingenuity Can Construct An Enigma... Which Human Ingenuity May Not, By Proper Application, Resolve.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Grammar Is The Analysis Of Language.

Sound Loves To Revel In A Summer Night.

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

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

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

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.

There Might Be A Class Of Beings, Human Once, But Now To Humanity Invisible, For Whose Scrutiny, And For Whose Refined Appreciation Of The Beautiful, More Especially Than For Our Own, Had Been Set In Order By God The Great Landscape-garden Of The Whole Earth.

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.

-ev'n With Us The Breath Of Science Dims The Mirror Of Our Joy.

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.

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!

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.

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

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...)

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.

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.

In Beauty Of Face No Maiden Ever Equaled Her. It Was The Radiance Of An Opium-dream - An Airy And Spirit-lifting Vision More Wildly Divine Than The Fantasies Which Hovered About The Slumbering Souls Of The Daughters Of Delos.

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

Quoth The Raven, "nevermore.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Hear The Sledges With The Bells, Silver Bells! What A World Of Merriment Their Melody Foretells! How They Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle, In The Icy Air Of Night, While The Stars That Oversprinkle All The Heavens Seem To Twinkle With A Crystalline Delight: Keeping Time, Time, Time, In A Sort Of Runic Rhyme To The Tintinnabulation That So Musically Wells From The Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells-- From The Jingling And The Tingling Of The Bells.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Philosophers Have Often Held Dispute As To The Seat Of Thought In Man And Brute For That The Power Of Thought Attends The Latter My Friend, Thy Beau, Hath Made A Settled Matter, And Spite Of Dogmas Current In All Ages, One Settled Fact Is Better Than Ten Sages. (o,tempora! O,mores!)

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.'

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Want Of An International Copy-right Law, By Rendering It Nearly Impossible To Obtain Anything From The Booksellers In The Wayof Remuneration For Literary Labor, Has Had The Effect Of Forcing Many Of Our Very Best Writers Into The Service Of The Magazines And Reviews.

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!

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

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

And I Fell Violently On My Face.

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

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

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

The Romans Worshipped Their Standard; And The Roman Standard Happened To Be An Eagle. Our Standard Is Only One Tenth Of An Eagle,--a Dollar, But We Make All Even By Adoring It With Tenfold Devotion.

Convinced Myself, I Seek Not To Convince.

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.

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

I Call To Mind Flatness And Dampness; And Then All Is Madness - The Madness Of A Memory Which Busies Itself Among Forbidden Things.

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?

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

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.

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

By Undue Profundity We Perplex And Enfeeble Thought; And It Is Possible To Make Even Venus Herself Vanish From The Firmament By A Scrutiny Too Sustained, Too Concentrated, Or Too Direct.

A 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.

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

There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

There Is Something In The Unselfish And Self-sacrificing Love Of A Brute, Which Goes Directly To The Heart Of Him Who Has Had Frequent Occasion To Test The Paltry Friendship And Gossamer Fidelity Of Mere Man.

You Call It Hope-that Fire Of Fire! It Is But Agony Of Desire.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I Wish I Could Write As Mysterious As A Cat.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Best Things In Life Make You Sweaty.

Then, Methought, The Air Grew Denser, Perfumed From An Unseen Censer Swung By Seraphim Whose Footfalls Tinkled On The Tufted Floor. "wretch," I Cried, "thy God Hath Lent Thee--by These Angels He Hath Sent Thee-- Respite--respite And Nepenthe From Thy Memories Of Lenore! Quaff, Oh Quaff This Kind Nepenthe, And Forget This Lost Lenore!" Quothe The Raven, "nevermore.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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