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

When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect – they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul – not of...

The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.

Stupidity is a talent for misconception.

The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess.

Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health.

Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in...

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action....

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...

Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.

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

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness?—from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out...

To HelenI saw thee once-once only-years ago;I must not say how many-but not many.It was a july midnight; and from outA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,There...

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...

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.

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

A Dream Within A DreamTake this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn...

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.

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about...

I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme.

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

Believe me, there exists no such dilemma as that in which a gentleman is placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard.

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?

Blood was its Avatar and its seal.

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...

The LakeIn spring of youth it was my lotTo haunt of the wide world a spotThe which I could not love the less-So lovely was the lonelinessOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,And the...

Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I a satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.

Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.

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

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

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

I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief.

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...

The Tell Tale Poe

The goodness of the true pun is in direct ratio to its intolerability

You call it hope — that fire of fire!It is but agony of desire.

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...

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full...

I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.

…And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted–nevermore!

I was never really insane, except on occasions where my heart was touched.

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

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

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest...

For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique.

Yes, I now feel that it was then on that evening of sweet dreams- that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have...

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.