There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.
You call it hope-that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire.
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.
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
I am walking like a bewitched corpse, with the certainty of being eaten by the infinite, of being annulled by the only existing Absurd.
And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.
I fell in love with melancholy
And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.
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.
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 nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
Children are never too tender to be whipped. Like tough beefsteaks, the more you beat them, the more tender they become.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
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.
It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
I dread the events of the future, not in themselves but in their results.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences,) is indulged.
To observe attentively is to remember distinctly.
Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.
Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness.
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.
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told.
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?
Melancholy is ... the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.
The past is a pebble in my shoe.
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...
Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page. They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day. Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then. Dreams are eraser dust and now I use a pen.
No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter than you and I.
The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.
Come little children I'll take thee away, into a land of Enchantment Come little children the time's come to play here in my garden of Shadows Follow sweet children I'll show thee the way through all the pain and the Sorrows Weep not poor childlen for life is this way murdering beauty and Passions Hush now dear children it must be this way to weary of life and Deceptions Rest now my children for soon we'll away into the calm and the Quiet Come little children I'll take thee away, into a land of Enchantment Come little children the time's come to play here in my garden of Shadows
I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
Happiness is not to be found in knowledge, but in the acquisition of knowledge
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Indeed, there is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
But Psyche uplifting her finger said: Sadly this star I mistrust
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.
All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
There is no beauty without some strangeness
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.
The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of God.
Democracy is a very admirable form of government - for dogs
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
Leave my loneliness unbroken
Me volví loco, con largos intervalos de horrible cordura.
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Art is to look at not to criticize.
Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
I have great faith in fools,— self-confidence my friends will call it.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Odors have an altogether peculiar force, in affecting us through association; a force differing essentially from that of objects addressing the touch, the taste, the sight or the hearing.
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.
I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.
We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.
The best things in life make you sweaty.
It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream.
A lie travels round the world while truth is putting her boots on.
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
If a poem hasn't ripped apart your soul; you haven't experienced poetry.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
Reality is the #1 cause of insanity among those who are in contact with it
In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow
Even in the grave, all is not lost.
Once upon a midnight dreary
The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.
Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.
A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, must not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong and if need be, taken by the strong. The weak were put on earth to give the strong pleasure.
The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written.
If you run out of ideas follow the road; you'll get there
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"— here I opened wide the door; — Darkness there, and nothing more.
Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today.
Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.
Thank Heaven! The crisis /The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last /, and the fever called ''Living'' is conquered at last.
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
False hope is nicer than no hope at all.
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.
Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed.
And 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.
The world is a great ocean, upon which we encounter more tempestuous storms than calms.
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
In efforts to soar above our nature, we invariably fall below it.
A wise man hears one word and understands two.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
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.
Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted -- Nevermore!
The most natural, and, consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy.
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket.
You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.
If a man deceives me once, shame on him; if he deceives me twice, shame on me.
Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health.
Sensations are the great things, after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations; they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet.
Invisible things are the only realities.
There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.
I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.
And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Those who gossip with you will gossip about you.
To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
