Wise Reminders From Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809–October 7, 1849) was an American writer and poet who is considered to have pioneered the category of detective fiction, and was one of the first Americans to consistently write short stories. He is also the first well-known American writer to earn a living exclusively through writing. His writing focused on mystery, romanticism, and the grotesque. He also wrote science fiction, and believed in reincarnation.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Edgar Allan Poe.

“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.”

“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?”

“I have no faith in human perfectability. 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.”

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

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

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”

“Stupidity is a talent for misconception.”

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

“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.”

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

“The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.”

“Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.”

“That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.”

“The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.”

“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 soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'”

“To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.”

“It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.”

“I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement.”

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

“Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.”

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo