Our Edgar Allan Poe Quotes cover The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and his take on love, life, and philosophy.
Quotes by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe was perhaps best known for his poetry and short stories. A master of mystery, and he was one of the earliest writers of short stories. Below are some of his famous lines from his works.
Love Quotes
We loved with a love that was more than love.
I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.
And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of Mother.
For passionate love is still divine / I lov’d her as an angel might / With ray of the all living light / Which blazes upon Edis’ shrine.
For love like mine can never be gotten over.
And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.
Dark Quotations
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 alone.
Deep in earth my love is lying And I must weep alone.
Years of love have been forgotten, in the hatred of a minute.
The most natural, and, consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
But as in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
Famous Sayings
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The best things in life make you sweaty.
Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe Raven Quotes
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.
The Tell Tale Heart
True! – nervous – very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? –now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.
Quotations on Life
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?
It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!
It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
The customs of the world are so many conventional follies.
Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
There are two bodies — the rudimental and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call “death,” is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.
All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.
Learn more about Edgar Allan Poe.
Inspirational Edgar Allan Poe Quotes
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.
Deep into that darkness, peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
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?
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
Poe Image
Good Poe Lines
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.
I have great faith in fools – self-confidence my friends will call it.
There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
Edgar Allan Poe Meme
Philosophy Insights
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told.
Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.
We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation – to make a point – than to further the cause of truth.
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities- that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.
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.
The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.
If a man deceives me once, shame on him; if he deceives me twice, shame on me.
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were – I have not seen As others saw – I could not bring My passions from a common spring.
Perceptions
Decorum — that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity for bliss has forever gone by.
Invisible things are the only realities.
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.
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 definiteness.
On Literature
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 the path.
In reading some books, we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.
How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!
There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.
On Beauty
Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.
We loved with a love that was more than love… With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me.
Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine — A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams.
On Madness
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 disease of thought – from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Greeting Card Poet.
Etcetera
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