Top 500 Edgar Allan Poe Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

152. “Yes I now feel that it was then on that evening of sweet dreams- that the very first dawn of human love burst upon the icy night of my spirit. Since that period I have never seen nor heard your name without a shiver half of delight half of anxiety.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

153. “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

154. “And I fell violently on my face.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

155. “I do believe God gave me a spark of genius, but he quenched it in misery.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

156. “It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

157. “Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

158. “I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. “Death,” I said, “any death but that of the pit!” Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?”

— Edgar Allan Poe

159. “The customs of the world are so many conventional follies.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

160. “There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

161. “From a proud tower in the town, Death looks gigantically down.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

162. “Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Featured in: Book Quotes

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

— Edgar Allan Poe

164. “The true genius shudders at incompleteness.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

165. “There are surely other worlds than this – other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude – other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?”

— Edgar Allan Poe

166. “In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

167. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

168. “The usual derivation of the word Metaphysics is not to be sustainedthe science is supposed to take its name from its superiority to physics. The truth is, that Aristotle’s treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book of Physics.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Featured in: Book Quotes

169. “Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

170. “Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Featured in: Book Quotes

171. “In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

172. “Other friends have flown before – On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

173. “It all depends on the robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber. – Daupin.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

174. “I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

175. “Scorching my seared heart with a pain, not hell shall make me fear again.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

176. “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart – an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

177. “To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

178. “Always keep a big bottle of booze at your side. If a bird starts talking nonsense to you in the middle of the night pour yourself a stiff drink.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

179. “The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

180. “At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

181. “No one should brave the underworld alone.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

182. “Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!”

— Edgar Allan Poe

183. “The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

184. “I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

185. “Boston: Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

186. “The old man,” I said at length, “is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow, for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

187. “His heart is a suspended lute; As soon as you touch it, it resonates.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

188. “Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

189. “I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust within the rock.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

190. “For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

191. “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.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

192. “I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension, without the power to comprehend as men, at time, find themselves upon the brink of rememberance, without being able, in the end, to remember.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

193. “As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Featured in: Strong Quotes

194. “I have no words alas! to tell the loveliness of loving well.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

195. “I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

196. “A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

197. “We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink away from the danger. Unaccountably we remain... it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height... for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

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

— Edgar Allan Poe

199. “Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or nevermore!”

— Edgar Allan Poe

200. “Finally on Sunday morning, October 7, 1849, “He became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time. Then, gently, moving his head,” he said, “Lord help my poor soul.” As he had lived so he died-in great misery and tragedy.”

— Edgar Allan Poe