The generous Critic fann’d the Poet’s fire, And taught the world with reason to admire

True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense...

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

Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture.

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...

Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.

As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.

From childhood’s 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...

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought...

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.

The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls…

Every moment of the nightForever changing placesAnd they put out the star-lightWith the breath from their pale faces

Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream.

To be thoroughly conversant with a man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.

Philosophers have often held disputeAs to the seat of thought in man and bruteFor that the power of thought attends the latterMy friend, thy beau, hath made a settled matter,And spite of dogmas current in...

By a route obscure and lonelyHaunted by ill angels only,Where an eidolon, named NIGHT,On a black throne reigns upright,I have reached these lands but newlyFrom an ultimate dim Thule –From a wild, weird clime that...

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.

Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide,...

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

Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

The teeth!—the teeth!—they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first...

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...

In [chess], where the pieces have different and “”bizarre”” motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex, is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound.

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of ANNABEL LEE;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to...

Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from...

Chi sogna di giorno conosce molte cose che sfuggono a chi sogna solo di notte.

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...

In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

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

There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell

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

I have been happy, though in a dream.I have been happy-and I love the theme:Dreams! in their vivid colouring of lifeAs in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife

In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.

I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

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

There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm

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

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from...

To be thoroughly conversant with Man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair

The principle of vis inertiae (…) seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a...

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.

We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused — in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other...

The best things in life make you sweaty.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality, which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!...

Nemo impune me lacessit!!

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?