Edgar Allan Poe

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

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.

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

I have great faith in fools self-confidence my friends call it.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

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 wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.

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 death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

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.'

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

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

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.

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book _ to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the floor _ to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire _ to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower _ to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind _ to lose all sense of motion or physical existence in a state of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in _ Such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to any thing like analysis or explanation.