Edgar Allan Poe

Coquetry, like a regular army, but with its more formidable implements reserved in the background, is in the front and always ready for action.

The waggish author of 'The New Mirror' is, I believe, the first who has openly maintained the doctrine that the great end of a writer is to get money.

As a literary man, I shall be a failure.

The ninety and nine are with the nine. The ninety and nine have a soul to save. The ninety and nine have a God to serve. The ninety and nine have a heaven to gain. The ninety and nine have a hell to shun.

I have a profound conviction that the world is a species of gigantic jest—a jest of the most elaborate and stupendous—of the most complicated and august—and of the most utterly incomprehensible character.

The greatest crimes are not those committed for profit, but those committed for love.

The true artist will always be a pauper.

There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion.

I have been a great sufferer. I have been a great sufferer from the misery of the world.

The singular feature of the mental structure of the ape is the faculty of imitation.

It is with literature as with women: one must have a certain experience to appreciate its value.

I am constitutionally nervous—high-strung. I have a morbid dread of solitude.

The universe is a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.

The unpardonable sin is to be a bore.

I have been a victim of a thousand phantasies.

The pure Imagination is a faculty, and not a quality.

To be original, one must be independent of the opinions of others.

It is not a matter of whether or not you will die, but of how you will live.

The world is a theatre, and we are merely players.