Quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

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.

“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.”

“Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.”

“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.”

“Even in the grave, all is not lost.”

“As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.”

“Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!”

“Blood was its Avatar and its seal.”

“Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.”

“I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.”

“From childhoods 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.”

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

“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.”