Quote collection
387 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused -- in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible."
"The reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul."
"I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror."
"I dread the events of the future, not in themselves but in their results."
"With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion."
"How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!"
"Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merelyflowers."
"Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day; or the agonies which are have their origins in ecstasies which might have been."
"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."
"The higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess."
"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."
"the truth is, I am heartily sick of this life & of the nineteenth century in general. (I am convinced that every thing is going wrong.)"
"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."
"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."
"Indeed, there is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted."
"The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover."
"Decorum -- that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity for bliss has forever gone by."
"A mystery, and a dream, should my early life seem."
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
"The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind."