27 Famous Quotes by Edgar Allan Poe
1/19/1809 - 10/7/1849
Also Known As:
Edgar Allen Poe
Poe
Edgar Poe
Professions:
Information:
About Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He 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.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems, credited only to "a Bostonian".
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 Baltimore in 1835, 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. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn, though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; 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.
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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.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Miscellaneous
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it "the Reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist
Nature
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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Filled with mingled cream and amber I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chambers of my brain -- Quaintest thoughts -- queerest fancies Come to life and fade away; Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today.
Ale
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man
Fidelity
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect
Poets
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
Popularity
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.
Bells
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: The Bells (st. 1)
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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!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
Bells
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: The Bells (st. 2)
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On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Italy
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: Helen
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Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly
shore,--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
Birds
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: The Raven (st. 8)
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And still the Raven, never flitting,
Still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas
Just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming
Of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming
Throws his shadow on the floor,
And my soul from out that shadow,
That lies floating on the floor,
Shall be lifted--nevermore.
Ravens
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: The Raven (st. 18)
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Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly
shore,--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"
Ravens
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe , Source: The Raven (st. 8)
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All that you see or seem, is but a dream within a dream. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe.
Dreams
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
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?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
Melancholy
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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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.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Melancholy
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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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.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Religion / beliefs
Quotes, by Edgar Allan Poe
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