Edgar Allan Poe

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'