Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from The Complete Stories and Poems:
“Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.”
“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.”
“A Dream Within A DreamTake this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand-How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep- while I weep!O God! can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?”
“It is a happiness to wonder; -- it is a happiness to dream.”
“I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down."[Letter to J. Beauchamp Jones, August 8, 1839]”
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.”
“To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!”
“Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?”
“Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone?All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.”
“EldoradoGaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow— Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow— ‘Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be— This land of Eldorado?’ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied,— ‘If you seek for Eldorado!”
“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.”
“And so, being young and dipt in follyI fell in love with melancholy,And used to throw my earthly restAnd quiet all away in jest—I could not love except where DeathWas mingling his with Beauty's breath—Or Hymen, Time, and DestinyWere stalking between her and me.”
“We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, — of the definite with the indefinite — of the substance with the shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, — we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies — it disappears — we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it is too late!”
“He knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling.”
“Philosophers have often held disputeAs to the seat of thought in man and bruteFor that the power of thought attends the latterMy friend, thy beau, hath made a settled matter,And spite of dogmas current in all ages,One settled fact is better than ten sages. (O,Tempora! O,Mores!)”
“The LakeIn spring of youth it was my lotTo haunt of the wide world a spotThe which I could not love the less-So lovely was the lonelinessOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,And the tall pines that towered around.But when the Night had thrown her pallUpon that spot, as upon all,And the mystic wind went byMurmuring in melody-Then-ah then I would awakeTo the terror of the lone lake.Yet that terror was not fright,But a tremulous delight-A feeling not the jewelled mineCould teach or bribe me to define-Nor Love-although the Love were thine.Death was in that poisonous wave,And in its gulf a fitting graveFor him who thence could solace bringTo his lone imagining-Whose solitary soul could makeAn Eden of that dim lake.”
“And if I died, at least I diedFor thee! for thee”
“For passion must, with youth, expire.”
“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.”
“And, when the friendly sunshine smil'd, / And she would mark the opening skies, / I saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.”
“Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality, which brings To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love- and all our own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.”
“Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or nevermore!”
“There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.”
“I have no words–alas!–to tellThe loveliness of loving well!”
“It was well said of a certain German book that ‘er lasst sich nicht lesen”—it does not permit itself to be read.”
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore.”
“LO! Death has reared himself a throneIn a strange city lying alone”
“Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness - for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee - and their will Shall then overshadow thee: be still.”
“We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence—the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life—and”
“In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colors. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequuntur -- the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the Eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain, they are all curtains -- a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.”
