xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“The happiest day — the happiest hour
My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" The Happiest Day http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=190", st. 1 (1827).

“Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen —; although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee”

Edgar Allan Poe Annabel Lee

St. 5.
Annabel Lee (1849)

“Can it be fancied that Deity ever vindictively
Made in his image a mannikin merely to madden it?”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

"The Rationale of Verse", III (1848); this is comparable to: ""What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke / A conscious Something to resent the yoke", FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám.

“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied, —
"If you seek for Eldorado!”

Edgar Allan Poe Eldorado

"Eldorado", st. 4.

“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not — and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

“If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize at one effort the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own — the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple — a few plain words — "My Heart Laid Bare."”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

But — this little book must be true to its title. <br class="br"> Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

“Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" Sonnet. To Science http://library.thinkquest.org/11840/Poe/science.html", l. 12-14 (1829).

“And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams —
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

"To One In Paradise", st. 4; variants of this verse read "where thy dark eye glances".

“With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Preface

“Hear the mellow wedding bells
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Bells

"The Bells", st. 2 (1849).

“I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

“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.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).

“The best things in life make you sweaty”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Attribution to Poe debunked by the Edgar Allan Poe museum https://www.poemuseum.org/blog/did-poe-really-say-that/. <br class="br">Earliest known source: a 2009 comment on a South Carolina duck hunting website http://www.scducks.com/forum/showpost.php?s=facea9e6926c3094744eadf268103181&p=513562&postcount=18. <br class="br">Misattributed

“"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!"”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

“Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul —
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.”

Edgar Allan Poe Ulalume

St. 2.
Ulalume (1847)

“In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Radiant palace — reared its head.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" The Haunted Palace http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/poe/17478" (1839), st. 1.

“It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night — and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)