Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

American writer and literary critic (1809–1849)

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Edgar Allan Poe, born Edgar Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, a part of literary studies and was also considered by some peoples both the central and most major figure of the American Romanticism, and a part of the American literature. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. Born in 1809 in Massachusetts, Poe was the son of American theatre actress Elizabeth Poe (mother) and David Poe, Jr. (father).

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Pen Names: Edgar A. Perry

Alternative Names: Poe • Edgar Poe • E. A. Poe • Edgar A. Poe • Quarles

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I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief — oh, no! — it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.

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.

A carpet is the soul of an apartment.

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

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.

I attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result.

Men have called me mad; but the question is not 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. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who only dream 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. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the ‘light ineffable’.

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.

In her sepulcher there by the sea — In her tomb by the sounding sea.

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 these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.

But Psyche uplifting her finger said: Sadly this star I mistrust

If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?

The idea of God, infinity, or spirit stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception.

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 thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into recesses if his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom.