Quotes from Edgar Allan Poe

And all my days are trances,And all my nightly dreamsAre where thy gray eye glances,And where thy footstep gleams—In what ethereal dances,By what eternal streams.

From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seenAs others saw.

True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

And when, amid no earthly moans,Down, down that town shall settle hence,Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,Shall do it reverence.

"Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,"The shade replied—"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Because I feel that in the heavens above The angels, whispering one to another, Can find among their burning tears of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore, by that dear name I have long called you, You who are more than mother unto me.

And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.

Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,And the grandeur that was Rome.

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.

I have no faith in human perfectibility. 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.

Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

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.

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,And Horror the soul of the plot.

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.'

If I could dwellWhere IsrafelHath dwelt, and he where I,He might not sing so wildly wellA mortal melody,While a bolder note than this might swellFrom my lyre within the sky.

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted—nevermore!

The word "Verse" is used here as the term most convenient for expressing, and without pedantry, all that is involved in the consideration of rhythm, rhyme, meter, and versification... the subject is exceedingly simple; one tenth of it, possibly may be called ethical; nine tenths, however, appertains to the mathematics.

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 wingèd seraphs of HeavenCoveted her and me.

I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.

The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of God.

All that we see and seem is but a dream within a dream.

Children are never too tender to be whipped. Like tough beefsteaks, the more you beat them, the more tender they become.

Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.