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A gentleman with a pug nose is a contradiction in terms.
Edgar Allan Poe
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There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,—not the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
Edgar Allan Poe
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A fearful instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility - alive, with the qualifications of the dead - dead, with the propensities of the living - an anomaly on the face of the earth - being very calm, yet breathless.
Edgar Allan Poe
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He knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling.
Edgar Allan Poe
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He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.
Edgar Allan Poe
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No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter than you and I.
Edgar Allan Poe
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If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment.
Edgar Allan Poe
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It would be mockery to call such dreariness heaven at all.
Edgar Allan Poe
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After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.
Edgar Allan Poe
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No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more than approach the living and breathing human beauty as it gladdens our daily path.
Edgar Allan Poe
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I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy – and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife...
Edgar Allan Poe
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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
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In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.
Edgar Allan Poe
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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. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient.
Edgar Allan Poe
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And I fell violently on my face.
Edgar Allan Poe
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And all I loved, I loved alone.
Edgar Allan Poe
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You need not attempt to shake off or to banter off Romance. It is an evil you will never get rid of to the end of your days. It is a part of yourself ... of your soul. Age will only mellow it a little, and give it a holier tone.
Edgar Allan Poe
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I have no words alas! to tell the loveliness of loving well...
Edgar Allan Poe
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I have not only labored solely for the benefit of others (receiving for myself a miserable pittance), but have been forced to model my thoughts at the will of men whose imbecility was evident to all but themselves...
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.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" — Merely this, and nothing more...
Edgar Allan Poe
