Edgar Allan Poe Quotes About Literature
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The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice--although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.
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I am actuated by an ambition which I believe to be an honourable one the ambition of serving the great cause of truth, while endeavouring to forward the literature of the country.
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With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
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The want of an international Copy-Right Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the wayof remuneration for literary labor, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews.
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The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
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The unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting.
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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.
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There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
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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.
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It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
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Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man.
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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.
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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.
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
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It is with literature as with law or empire - an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.
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I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.
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