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Edgar Allan Poe Quotes
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Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Poe was born in Boston, the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for but left after a year due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time that his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with the anonymous collection Tamerlane and Other Poems , credited only to "a Bostonian". With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. However, Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and he ultimately parted ways with John Allan.

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Richmond in 1836, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal The Penn , though he died before it could be produced. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, at age 40; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.

Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.

✵ 19. January 1809 – 7. October 1849
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Edgar Allan Poe: 126   quotes 197   likes

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

“The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Philosophy of Composition

"The Philosophy of Composition" (published 1846).

Death , World , Beauty , Lovers

“Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.”

Edgar Allan Poe Eldorado

"Eldorado", st. 1 (1849).

Search , Singing

“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.”

Edgar Allan Poe The City in the Sea

St. 1.
The City in the Sea (1831)

Death , Lying

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 5.
The Raven (1844)

Fear , Dreams

“Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now — I feel ye in your strength.”

Edgar Allan Poe

" The Coliseum http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/american/1800-1899/poe-coliseum-674.txt", st. 2 (1833).

Age , Feeling , Silence , Memory

“"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!"”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 15.
The Raven (1844)

Bird , Evil

“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 feel, as crime.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

Death , Men , Religion , Feeling

“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 the path.”

Edgar Allan Poe

" Letter to Frederick W. Thomas http://www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4902140.htm" (1849-02-14).

Literature , Parting , Dependency

“If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.”

Edgar Allan Poe

"Israfel", st. 8 (1831).

Singing

“While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man",
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Conqueror Worm

"The Conqueror Worm" (1843), st. 5.

Angels

“Sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 2.
The Raven (1844)

Angels

“For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

“I have great faith in fools — self-confidence my friends will call it.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

Faith , Faith , Fools , Confidence

“There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.”

Edgar Allan Poe

The Poetic Principle (1850)

“Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely—flowers.”

Edgar Allan Poe

"Israfel", st. 7 (1831).

World , Flowers

“And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.”

Edgar Allan Poe Alone

"Alone", l. 20-22.

“While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.”

Edgar Allan Poe The Haunted Palace

"The Haunted Palace" (1839), st. 5.

Smile

“That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

“So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.”

Edgar Allan Poe The City in the Sea

St. 2.
The City in the Sea (1831)

Death

“Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 7.
The Raven (1844)

“Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

Stupidity , Law , Soul , Understanding

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

Edgar Allan Poe

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

Angels

“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)

Soul

“"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)

Tear , Heart

“The best things in life make you sweaty”

Edgar Allan Poe

Attribution to Poe debunked by the Edgar Allan Poe museum https://www.poemuseum.org/blog/did-poe-really-say-that/.
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.
Misattributed

Life

“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)

Feeling , Suffering , Personality

“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).

World , Wedding , Night , Happiness

“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

The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Preface

Passion

“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

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

Dreams , Dance

“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

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

Dreams , Tree , Grass , Summer

“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

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

Books , World , Effort , Universe

“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)

Dreams , Home , Soul , Sense

“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.

Mountain

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

Edgar Allan Poe

"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.

“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)

Love , Beauty , Angels , Soul

“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).

Life , World , Nature

“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

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

Hope , Feeling , Heart

“Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates — the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

The Black Cat (1843)

Suffering , Evil

“It is with literature as with law or empire — an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.”

Edgar Allan Poe

" Letter to Mr. B — http://www.lfchosting.com/eapoe/works/essays/blettera.htm", preface to Poems (1831).

Law , Literature

“O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”

Edgar Allan Poe

"A Dream Within A Dream" (1849).

God , Dreams

“"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore.”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 11.
The Raven (1844)

“There is no oath which seems to me so sacred as that sworn by the all-divine love I bear you. — By this love, then, and by the God who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of dishonor — that, with the exception of occasional follies and excesses which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable sorrow, and which are hourly committed by others without attracting any notice whatever — I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush to my cheek — or to yours. If I have erred at all, in this regard, it has been on the side of what the world would call a Quixotic sense of the honorable — of the chivalrous.”

Edgar Allan Poe

" Letter to Mrs. Whitman http://www.lfchosting.com/eapoe/WORKS/letters/p4810181.htm" (1848-10-18).

Love , Life , God , World

“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Masque of the Red Death

"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842).

Death

“The object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose.”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Philosophy of Composition

The Philosophy of Composition (published 1846).

Truth , Passion , Heart

“And all I loved, I loved alone. ”

Edgar Allan Poe
Love

“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

Edgar Allan Poe book William Wilson

William Wilson (1839)

Dead , Hope , Art , World

“Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist—it was Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine own!”

Edgar Allan Poe book William Wilson

William Wilson (1839)

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