Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as one of the central figures of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States and of early American literature. Poe was one of the country's first successful practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered to be one of the pioneers of the detective fiction genre. In addition, he is credited with contributing significantly to the emergence of science fiction. He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living exclusively through writing, which resulted in a financially difficult life and career.

Quotes

There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it.
Sleep, those little slices of death; Oh how I loathe them.
But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful.
But as in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born.
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.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
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.
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.
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
To be thoroughly conversant with a man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.
Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Dreams, Night
It may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma... which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.
Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.

Suffering