Quote

Tell a scoundrel, three or four times a day, that he is the pink of probity, and you make him at least the perfection of respectability in good earnest. On the other hand, accuse an honorable man, too petinaciously, of being a villain, and you fill him with a perverse ambition to show you that you are not altogether in the wrong.

Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe
Age: 40 †
Born: 1809
Born: January 19
Died: 1849
Died: October 7
Author
Crime Writer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lyricist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Poe
Edgar Poe
E. A. Poe
Three
Least
Altogether
Probity
Hands
Hand
Earnest
Scoundrel
Make
Four
Villain
Scoundrels
Good
Wrong
Honorable
Perverse
Men
Show
Revenge
Respectability
Times
Fill
Accuse
Tell
Ambition
Pink
Shows
Perfection
Persecution

More quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

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It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment.
Edgar Allan Poe
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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.
Edgar Allan Poe
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In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Grammar is the analysis of language.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.
Edgar Allan Poe
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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
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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.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Yet we met and fate bound us together at the alter,and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder it is a happiness to dream.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance ... which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.
Edgar Allan Poe
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There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge.
Edgar Allan Poe
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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
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In me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.
Edgar Allan Poe
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And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.
Edgar Allan Poe
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It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
Edgar Allan Poe
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From a proud tower in the town, Death looks gigantically down.
Edgar Allan Poe
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For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
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Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain — Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies Come to life and fade away What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today.
Edgar Allan Poe