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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, born Edgar Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, a part of literary studies and was also considered by some peoples both the central and most major figure of the American Romanticism, and a part of the American literature. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. Born in 1809 in Massachusetts, Poe was the son of American theatre actress Elizabeth Poe (mother) and David Poe, Jr. (father).

Quotes

 * A dark unfathom'd tide Of interminable pride — A mystery, and a dream, Should my early life seem.
 * "Imitation", Tamerlane and Other Poems (1884).

 * O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
 * "Tamerlane", l. 177 (1884).

 * The happiest day — the happiest hour My sear'd and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.
 * "The Happiest Day", st. 1 (1884).

 * Sound loves to revel in a summer night.
 * Al Aaraaf (1829).

 * Years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute.
 * To M——— (1829), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * From childhood's hour I have not been As others were — I have not seen As others saw —  I could not bring My passions from a common spring — From the same source I have not taken My sorrow —  I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone — And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone —
 * "Alone", l. 1-8 (written 1829, published 1875).

 * And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.
 * "Alone", l. 20-22.

 * Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
 * "Sonnet. To Science", l. 12-14 (1829).

 * It is with literature as with law or empire — an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.
 * "Letter to Mr. B —", preface to Poems (1831).

 * Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness.
 * "Letter to Mr. B — ".

 * Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
 * "To Helen", st. 1-2 (1831).

 * Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely—flowers.
 * "Israfel", st. 7 (1831).

 * If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.
 * "Israfel", st. 8 (1831).

 * Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! — An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young — A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
 * "Lenore", st. 1 (1831).

 * Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night! I feel ye now — I feel ye in your strength.
 * "The Coliseum", st. 2 (1833).

 * Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine —  A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.
 * "To One in Paradise", st. 1 (1834).

 * And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams — In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.
 * "To One In Paradise", st. 4; variants of this verse read "where thy dark eye glances".

 * Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.
 * "Berenice" (1835).

 * And as, in ethics, Evil is a consequence of Good, so, in fact, out of Joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
 * "Berenice".

 * There is then no analogy whatever between the operations of the Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a pure machine we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of mankind.
 * Poe stating his arguments that Maelzel's Chess-Player was a hoax. Maelzel's Chess-Player, Southern Literary Journal (April 1836).

 * During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
 * "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839).

 * In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace — Radiant palace — reared its head.
 * "The Haunted Palace" (1839), st. 1.

 * This—all this—was in the olden Time long ago.
 * "The Haunted Palace" (1839), st. 2.

 * While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door A hideous throng rush out forever And laugh — but smile no more.
 * "The Haunted Palace" (1839), st. 5.

 * A carpet is the soul of an apartment.
 * "The Philosophy of Furniture" in The Gentleman's Magazine (1840:6), p. 267

 * Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite an easy thing to invent a method of secret writing which shall baffle investigation. Yet it may be roundly asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve.
 * "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine (July 1841).

 * They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
 * "Eleonora" (1841).

 * Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen —; although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature.
 * "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).

 * "The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind."
 * "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).

 * To observe attentively is to remember distinctly.
 * "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).

 * And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
 * "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842).

 * While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man", And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
 * "The Conqueror Worm" (1843), st. 5.

 * Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.
 * "Diddling: Considered As One Of The Exact Sciences"; first published as "Raising the Wind" in Saturday Courier (October 14, 19843).

 * The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
 * "The Premature Burial" (1844).

 * By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule — From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE — out of TIME.
 * "Dreamland", st. 1 (1845).

 * With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
 * The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Preface

 * Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love — a simple duty.
 * "To Frances S. Osgood" (1845).

 * The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled — but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
 * "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).

 * For the love of God Montresor!
 * "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).

 * Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.
 * "The Philosophy of Composition" (published 1846).

 * The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.
 * "The Philosophy of Composition" (published 1846).

 * The object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose.
 * The Philosophy of Composition (published 1846).

 * I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
 * Letter to George W. Eveleth (January 4, 1848).

 * Can it be fancied that Deity ever vindictively Made in his image a mannikin merely to madden it?
 * "The Rationale of Verse", III (1848); this is comparable to: ""What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke / A conscious Something to resent the yoke", FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám.

 * There is no oath which seems to me so sacred as that sworn by the all-divine love I bear you. — By this love, then, and by the God who reigns in Heaven, I swear to you that my soul is incapable of dishonor — that, with the exception of occasional follies and excesses which I bitterly lament, but to which I have been driven by intolerable sorrow, and which are hourly committed by others without attracting any notice whatever — I can call to mind no act of my life which would bring a blush to my cheek — or to yours. If I have erred at all, in this regard, it has been on the side of what the world would call a Quixotic sense of the honorable — of the chivalrous.
 * "Letter to Mrs. Whitman" (October 18, 1848).

 * Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path.
 * "Letter to Frederick W. Thomas" (February 14, 1849).

 * Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado.
 * "Eldorado", st. 1 (1849).

 * "Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, — "If you seek for Eldorado!"
 * "Eldorado", st. 4.

 * You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
 * "A Dream Within a Dream" (1849).

 * O God! Can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
 * "A Dream Within A Dream" (1849).

 * Thank Heaven! the crisis — The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last — And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last.
 * "For Annie", st. 1 (1849).

 * Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells.
 * "The Bells", st. 1 (1849).

 * Hear the mellow wedding bells Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight!
 * "The Bells", st. 2 (1849).

 * As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester — and this is my last jest.
 * "Hop-Frog" (1850).

 * I attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result.
 * "The Angel of the Odd" (1850).

 * These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities — of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect (like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part, I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the 'singular' about it.
 * "The Angel Of The Odd: An Extravaganza".

 * Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.
 * "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (1845)

The City in the Sea (1831)

 * Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.
 * St. 1.

 * So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.
 * St. 2.

 * And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.
 * St. 5.

William Wilson (1839)

 * A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.

 * Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist—it was Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine own!

 * It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

 * "You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

 * TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

 * Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually — I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

 * And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? -- now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

 * If you still think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

 * "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

The Black Cat (1843)

 * For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not — and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul.

 * 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.

 * I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.

 * One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!

 * Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?

 * Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates — the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

 * It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night — and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

 * For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

Marginalia (November 1844)
First published in the Democratic Review

 * If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

 * After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.

 * 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.

 * If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize at one effort the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own — the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple — a few plain words — "My Heart Laid Bare." But — this little book must be true to its title.

 * How many good books suffer neglect through the inefficiency of their beginnings!

 * In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.

 * I have sometimes amused myself by endeavouring to fancy what would be the fate of an individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind — that he would be considered a madman is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong. In like manner, nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit — truly feeling what all merely profess — must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction — its motives misinterpreted. Just as extremeness of intelligence would be thought fatuity, so excess of chivalry could not fail of being looked upon as meanness in the last degree — and so on with other virtues. This subject is a painful one indeed. That individuals have so soared above the plane of their race is scarcely to be questioned; but, in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all the biographies of the "good and the great," while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows.

 * 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".

 * I have great faith in fools — self-confidence my friends will call it.

 * That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

 * The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information, by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.
 * Originally published in a review of "Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland", where the next sentence was "In no department have the complaints of this evil been louder or more just, than in the law." and the first sentence was "We cannot perceive any sufficient reason for the publication of this book."

The Raven (1844)

 * Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
 * Stanza 1.

 * Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
 * Stanza 2.

 * Sorrow for the lost Lenore — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore — Nameless here for evermore.
 * Stanza 2.

 * And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.
 * Stanza 3.

 * Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
 * Stanza 5.

 * Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
 * Stanza 7.

 * "Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore — Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 * Stanza 8.

 * "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore.
 * Stanza 11.

 * "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!"
 * Stanza 15.

 * "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 * Stanza 17.

 * And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.
 * Stanza 18.

 * And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!
 * Stanza 18.

Ulalume (1847)

 * The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere — The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.
 * St. 1.

 * Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul — Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
 * St. 2.

 * Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom.
 * St. 8.

Annabel Lee (1849)

 * It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; —  And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
 * St. 1.

 * I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love — I and my Annabel Lee —  With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.
 * St. 2.

 * But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we — Of many far wiser than we — And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee
 * St. 5.

 * In her sepulcher there by the sea — In her tomb by the sounding sea.
 * St. 6.

The Poetic Principle (1850)

 * Published 1850-08-31

 * A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul.

'''I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient.''' That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length.
 * I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

 * There neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified — more supremely noble than this very poem — this poem per se — this poem which is a poem and nothing more — this poem written solely for the poem's sake.

 * I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is taste. With the intellect or with the conscience, it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with duty or with truth.

Disputed

 * All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry!
 * Sometimes quoted as "All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry"
 * According to John A. Joyce's much-criticized biography Edgar Allen Poe (1901), this was said by Poe to William Barton. Google Books link

Misattributed

 * The best things in life make you sweaty
 * Attribution to Poe debunked by the Edgar Allan Poe museum.
 * Earliest known source: a 2009 comment on a South Carolina duck hunting website.

 * Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them.
 * Various forms of this quote are attributed to Poe, primarily by a title card in the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, though there is no record of his having ever said it.

Quotes about Poe

 * We see that in Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabelle Lee."...we see that love sometimes suffocates, sometimes smothers in an attempt to keep the beloved.
 * 1988 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)

 * I started writing when I was mute. I always thought I could write because I loved to read so much. I loved the melody of Poe and I loved Paul Laurence Dunbar. I had memorized so much of Dunbar, Poe, Shakespeare, James Weldon Johnson, Longfellow. When my son was able to be quiet enough to listen, I taught him those poets. A few years ago he gave a reading of his poetry and he started the reading by saying "First, let me recite to you some of the poets my mother raised me on..."
 * 1988 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)

 * Edgar Allan Poe, whom I admire enormously, set a model for the American short story which is very tough to break. He is the one who established that the traditional short story has to be like this...The fantastic, as Poe understood it, deals with the subconscious, with the nearness of madness. Our vision is altered, much like what the Surrealists believed, and we see things in a different way. But that doesn't mean they exist this way in the outside world. In magical realism miracles do happen, and our literature takes part in them.
 * Rosario Ferré interview in Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out by Donna Marie Perry (1993)

 * Don't forget books. What would life be without them? Emily Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, William Faulkner. Read the greats-they're great for a reason. They know how to chart the human soul. (p 32)
 * Alice Hoffman Survival Lessons (2013)

 * An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. Baudelaire thought him a profound philosopher, the neglect of whose golden utterances stamped his native land with infamy. Nevertheless, Poe was vastly the greater charlatan of the two, as well as the greater genius.
 * Henry James French Poets and Novelists (London: Macmillan & Co., 1878), p. 89
 * From the section on Charles Baudelaire.

 * Most literary agents advise young writers to avoid writing short stories. [...] If Edgar Allen Poe were alive today, his agent would constantly slapping him upside the head with tightly rolled copies of his brilliant short stories and novelettes, yelling, "Full-length novels, you moron! Pay attention! What's the matter with you -- are you shooting heroin or something? Write for the market! No more of this middlelength 'Fall of the House of Usher' crap!"
 * Dean Koontz, afterward to his short story collection Strange Highways, Warner Books Inc. (1995) pp. 556-557

 * He was an adventurer into the vaults and cellars and horrible underground passages of the human soul. He sounded the horror and the warning of his own doom.
 * D.H. Lawrence in Studies in Classic American Literature (1924).

 * Poe, who was fortunate in little else, was almost without exception fortunate in his foreign interpreters-the rarest good luck to befall poets. That the French acclaimed his genius long before it was recognized by his fellow countrymen-if, indeed, we may say we have ever recognized it—was due as much to Baudelaire's sympathetic and haunting versions of his poems as to the beauty of the originals. Poe's Spanish interpreter and occasional translator, José Asunción Silva, was, no less than Baudelaire, qualified by tragic experience of life as well as by sympathy and surpassing ability to embody in liquid and lingering Castilian the conception of poetry that was to help in altering to some extent the South American picture of the United States as a land where genius could not exist. To some extent only, unfortunately, for whenever a norteamericanófilo-a creature as rare as the name-has cited Poe as an example of what we might rise to artistically, there has always been a chorus ready to shout, with discouraging truthfulness, "Yes, but they let him die in beggarly obscurity!" Poe is much more alive today south of the Rio Grande than in Virginia or New York: more loved, more reverenced, more often read and beyond comparison more often quoted-both as to his poetry and his theory of poetry.
 * Muna Lee (writer) "Brother of Poe" in Southwest Review, July 1926. Included in A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee edited by Jonathan Cohen (2004)

 * There comes Poe, with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.
 * James Russell Lowell in A Fable for Critics (1848).

 * Poe is a kind of Hawthorne and delirium tremens.
 * Leslie Stephen in Hours in a Library (1874).

 * Poe...was perhaps the first great nonstop literary drinker of the American nineteenth century. He made the indulgences of Coleridge and De Quincey seem like a bit of mischief in the kitchen with the cooking sherry.
 * James Thurber in Alarms and Diversions (1957).

 * Almost without the first sign of moral principle, or of the concrete and its heroisms, or the simpler affections of the heart, Poe's verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity towards nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page—and, by final judgment, belong among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat.
 * Walt Whitman "Specimen Days and Collect" The Academy 22 (Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co., November 18, 1882), pp. 357-359

 * I do not know why you or indeed anybody should want to illustrate Poe. ... I admire a few lyrics of his extremely and a few pages of his prose, chiefly in his critical essays, which are sometimes profound. The rest of him seems to be vulgar and commonplace.
 * W.B. Yeats, quoted by Marjorie Perloff "The strange voice of Edgar Allan Poe" The Times Literary Supplement (February 6, 2015), reprinted in Marjorie Perloff Circling the Canon, Volume II: The Selected Book Reviews Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019, p. 256

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Edgar Allan Poe


text:
Hulbert Footner

William Hulbert Footner (1879 – 1944) was a Canadian, who moved to New York to become an actor and eventually became an author.

Quotes

 * Rafe turned up looking like the glass of fashion and the mold of form.
 * Murderer's Vanity, p. 16 (1940).

title: Hulbert Footner


text:
John Lyly

John Lyly (Lilly or Lylie) (c. 1553 – 1606) was an English writer, best known for his Euphues (1579).

 * See also:
 * Campaspe
 * Sapho and Phao
 * Midas
 * Gallathea
 * Mother Bombie

Quotes

 * Fish and guests in three days are stale.
 * Euphues, p. 305

 * Cupid and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses—Cupid paid: He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows; Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lips, the rose Growing one's cheek (but none knows how); With these, the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin: All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes— She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love! has she done this for thee? What shall, alas! become of me?
 * Poem: Cupid and Campaspe (c. 1584).

 * How at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The morne not waking til she sings.
 * Cupid and Campaspe (c. 1584), Act v, Sc. 1. Compare: "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gat sings,/And Phœbus 'gins arise", William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act ii, sc. 3.

 * There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.
 * Euphues and his Euphœbus, p. 153, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "There is no fire without some smoke", John Heywood, Proverbes, Part ii, Chap. v.

 * A clere conscience is a sure carde.
 * Euphues, p. 207, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "This is a sure card", Thersytes, circa 1550.

 * As lyke as one pease is to another.
 * Euphues, p. 215, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Euphues (Arber [1580])

 * Be valyaunt, but not too venturous. Let thy attyre bee comely, but not costly.
 * P. 39. Compare: "Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,/ But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy", William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act i, sc. 3.

 * Though the Camomill, the more it is trodden and pressed downe the more it spreadeth.
 * P. 46. Compare: "The camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows", William Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4.

 * The finest edge is made with the blunt whetstone.
 * P. 47.

 * I cast before the Moone.
 * P. 78. Compare: "Feare may force a man to cast beyond the moone", John Heywood, Proverbes, Part i, Chap. iv.

 * It seems to me (said she) that you are in some brown study.
 * P. 80. Compare: "A brown study", Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation.

 * The soft droppes of rain perce the hard marble; many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks.
 * P. 81. Compare: "Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow", Plutarch, Of the Training of Children; "Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat" (translation: "Continual dropping wears away a stone"), Lucretius, i. 314; "Many strokes, though with a little axe,/ Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak", William Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI, act ii, sc. 1.

 * He reckoneth without his Hostesse. Love knoweth no lawes.
 * P. 84. Compare: "Reckeners without their host must recken twice", John Heywood, Proverbes, Part i, Chap. viii.

 * That honourable estate of Matrimony, which was sanctified in Paradise, allowed of the Patriarches, hallowed of the olde Prophets, and commended of al persons.
 * P. 86.

 * Did not Jupiter transforme himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmæna; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to win Danae?
 * P. 93. Compare: "Jupiter himself was turned into a satyr, a shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what not for love", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii, sec ii, mem. i, subs. 1.

 * Lette me stande to the maine chance.
 * P. 104. Compare: "The main chance", William Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI, act i, sc. 1.; Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part ii' canto ii.; John Dryden, Persius, satire vi.

 * I mean not to run with the Hare and holde with the Hounde.
 * P. 107. Compare: "To hold with the hare and run with the hound", John Heywood, Proverbes, Part i, Chap. x.

 * Rather fast then surfette, rather starue then striue to exceede.
 * P. 108.

 * Is it not true which Seneca reporteth, that as too much bending breaketh the bowe, so too much remission spoyleth the minde?
 * P. 112.

 * It is a world to see.
 * P. 116. Compare: "'T is a world to see", William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, act ii, sc. 1.

In Popular Culture
"Be valyaunt, but not too venturous" is quoted in Jeeves and Wooster, when Wooster is playing golf, and getting his ball into the rough once too often. In this, he refers to Lyly simply as "The Poet"

Euphues and his England

 * Goe to bed with the Lambe, and rise with the Larke.
 * P. 229. Compare: "To rise with the lark and go to bed with the lamb", Breton, Court and Country, 1618 (reprint, page 182); "Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed", James Hurdis, The Village Curate.

 * A comely olde man as busie as a bee.
 * P. 252.

 * Maydens, be they never so foolyshe, yet beeing fayre they are commonly fortunate.
 * P. 279.

 * Where the streame runneth smoothest, the water is deepest.
 * P. 287. Compare: "Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb", Sir Walter Raleigh, The Silent Lover.

 * Your eyes are so sharpe that you cannot onely looke through a Milstone, but cleane through the minde.
 * P. 289.

 * Fishe and gesse in three dayes are stale.
 * P. 305./306.

 * I am glad that my Adonis hath a sweete tooth in his head.
 * P. 308.

 * For experience teacheth me that straight trees have crooked roots.
 * P. 311

 * A Rose is sweeter in the budde than full blowne.
 * P. 314. Compare: "The rose is fairest when 't is budding new", Sir Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake, canto iii. st. 1.

title: John Lyly


text:
User talk:Jazmin~enwikiquote

 * Hi, leave me a note in this Talk page. Can't promise I'll get to it quickly but sooner or later, you betcha. P.S. Quote me something [wink]. - User:Jazmin

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title: User talk:Jazmin~enwikiquote


text:
User:Jazmin~enwikiquote

Always verify your quotations (references)
Dean Burgon in his Lives of Twelve Good Men, mentions visiting Dr. Routh, and asking, "Every studious man, in the course of a long and thoughtful life, has had occasion to experience the special value of some one axiom or precept. Would you mind giving me the benefit of such a word of advice?" To which Dr. Routh answers: "I think sir, you will find it a very good practice always to verify your quotations (references)".
 * Author: Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, President of Magdalen College.
 * Source: Advice given to Dean John William Burgon, (29 November 1847),

title: User:Jazmin~enwikiquote


text:
Martin Joseph Routh

Dr. Martin Joseph Routh (18 September 1755 – 22 December 1854) was President of Magdalen College from 28 April 1792 until his death.

Quotes

 * I think sir, since you care for the advice of an old man, sir, you will find it a very good practise, always to verify your references, sir!
 * Advice given to Dean John William Burgon, (29 November 1847), in response to the question: "Every studious man, in the course of a long and thoughtful life, has had occasion to experience the special value of some one axiom or precept. Would you mind giving me the benefit of such a word of advice?"; quoted in Lives of twelve good men, by John William Burgon, 1888, vol. 1 p. 73.

 * It will lead to nothing, I fear, sir
 * Remarked to William Palmer, on the eve of his 1840-1 journey to Russia to improve Anglican-Orthodox relations. The trip reaped little success; quoted in Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, by William Palmer, 1882, p. 10.

 * But I know, my friends, that you may object to me what St. Irenaeus says.
 * Said to his congregation after an exposition of his own theology; quoted in Essays and addresses, Herbert McLachlan, Manchester University Press, 1954, p. 354

 * Wait, sir, until I am gone!
 * Standard reply to people proposing changes in the running of Oxford University; quoted in Colin Gordon, Beyond the Looking Glass (1982), p. 37

title: Martin Joseph Routh


text:
The Fellowship of the Ring

 * For quotes from the movie adaptations, see The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

The Fellowship of the Ring (1954); first of three volumes in The Lord of the Rings books by J. R. R. Tolkien. It contains Book I: The Ring Sets Out and Book II: The Ring Goes South.

A Long-expected Party

 * When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
 * First sentence

 * I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
 * Bilbo's farewell speech

 * The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.

 * 'It was a compliment,' said Merry Brandybuck, 'and so, of course, not true.'

The Shadow of the Past

 * Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
 * In the story this is a translation of a verse in the Black Speech.

'In many ways,' answered the wizard. 'It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.'
 * 'You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what way?'
 * Frodo and Gandalf

 * 'Sooner or later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last. Sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.'
 * Gandalf

 * He thought the ring was very beautiful, and very useful at need; and if anything was wrong or queer, it was himself. He said that it was "growing on his mind", and he was always worrying about it; but he did not suspect that the ring itself was to blame.
 * Gandalf

 * 'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'

'Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.'
 * 'What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'
 * Frodo and Gandalf

 * Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.
 * Gandalf

 * 'You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?’ 'No!' cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. 'With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.' His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. 'Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.'

Three is Company

 * He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
 * Frodo, of Bilbo

 * I don't know, and I would rather not guess.
 * Frodo

 * Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

 * But it is not your own Shire. Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
 * Gildor

 * Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
 * Gildor

 * Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.
 * Frodo

 * ...Seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
 * Gildor

 * 'But where shall I find courage?' asked Frodo. 'Courage is found in unlikely places,' said Gildor. 'Be of good hope! Sleep now!'
 * Frodo and Gildor

A Short Cut to Mushrooms

 * 'They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak,' answered Sam slowly. 'It don't seem to matter what I think about them. They are quite different from what I expected – so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were.'
 * Sam speaking of the Elves.

 * 'Short cuts make delays, but inns make longer ones.'
 * Frodo

 * Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe. Rain may fall and wind may blow, And many miles be still to go, But under a tall tree I will lie, And let the clouds go sailing by.
 * Sam and Pippin

A Conspiracy Unmasked

 * 'Sam is an excellent fellow, and would jump down a dragon's throat to save you, if he did not trip over his own feet.'
 * Said by Pippin

In the House of Tom Bombadil

 * 'Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?'
 * Tom Bombadil to Frodo.

 * 'Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside.'
 * Tom Bombadil

 * There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all.

 * There's earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open.
 * Tom Bombadil, speaking of Farmer Maggot

 * Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadilo! By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!

 * Then Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing!
 * Fellowship

Fog on the Barrow-Downs

 * That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

 * Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts up his hand over dead sea and withered land.

 * There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow.

 *  Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.

Strider

 * All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.

A Knife in the Dark

 * Gil-galad was an Elven-king. Of him the harpers sadly sing: the last whose realm was fair and free between the Mountains and the Sea. His sword was long, his lance was keen, his shining helm afar was seen; the countless stars of heaven's field were mirrored in his silver shield.  But long ago he rode away, and where he dwelleth none can say; for into darkness fell his star in Mordor where the shadows are.

Many Meetings

 * He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.
 * Gandalf to himself, of Frodo

 * But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.
 * Gandalf to Frodo

 * I am sorry: sorry you have come in for this burden; sorry about everything. Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.
 * Bilbo to Frodo

 * Time doesn't seem to pass here: it just is.
 * Bilbo to Frodo, of Rivendell

The Council of Elrond

 * ...in the wearing of the swift years of Middle-earth the line of Meneldil son of Anárion failed, and the Tree withered, and the blood of the Númenoreans became mingled with that of lesser men. Then the watch upon the walls of Mordor slept, and dark things crept back to Gorgoroth. And on a time evil things came forth, and they took Minas Ithil and abode in it, and they made it into a place of dread; and it is called Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery.
 * Elrond

 * Seek for the Sword that was broken: In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isildur's Bane shall waken, And the Halfling forth shall stand.

 * Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us.
 * Aragorn

 * And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.
 * Aragorn

 * He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
 * Gandalf to Saruman

 * It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill. But such falls and betrayals, alas, have happened before.
 * Elrond, of Saruman

 * I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come.
 * Glorfindel

 * It is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.
 * Gandalf

 * We must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril – to Mordor. We must send the Ring to the Fire.
 * Elrond

 * We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart.
 * Elrond

 * If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron's throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it.
 * Elrond

 * Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.
 * Gandalf

 * Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.
 * Gandalf

 * This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
 * Elrond

 * I had thought of putting: and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true.
 * Bilbo

 * 'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'
 * Frodo

 * This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?
 * Elrond

The Ring Goes South

 * 'Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,' said Gimli. 'Maybe,' said Elrond, 'but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.' 'Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,' said Gimli. 'Or break it,' said Elrond.

A Journey in the Dark

 * At last Frodo spoke. 'I do not wish to go,' he said; 'but neither do I wish to refuse the advice of Gandalf. I beg that there should be no vote, until we have slept on it. Gandalf will get votes easier in the light of the morning than in this cold gloom. How the wind howls!' At these words all fell into silent thought. They heard the wind hissing among the rocks and trees, and there was a howling and wailing round them in the empty spaces of the night. Suddenly Aragorn leapt to his feet. 'How the wind howls!' he cried. 'It is howling with wolf-voices. The Wargs have come west of the Mountains!'

The Bridge of Khazad-dûm

 * Well, well! That's over! I have done all that I could. But I have met my match, and have nearly been destroyed. But don't stand here! Go on!
 * Gandalf following his brief, first confrontation with the Balrog of Moria (having been blown down a flight of stairs)

 * 'You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'
 * Gandalf confronting the Balrog of Moria

 * With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools!' he cried, and was gone.
 * Gandalf falling into the chasm above which the Bridge of Khazad-dûm had stood

Lothlórien

 * In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.
 * Haldir

 * The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
 * Haldir to the Fellowship

 * I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning.
 * Sam, to Frodo

 * As Frodo prepared to follow him, he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.

The Mirror of Galadriel

 * 'Speak no evil of the Lady Galadriel!' said Aragorn sternly. 'You know not what you say. There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man bring it hither himself.'

 * It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.
 * Attributed by Sam to his "old gaffer"

 * I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.
 * Galadriel

 * You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and perilous.
 * Galadriel to Frodo

'That what should be shall be,' she answered.
 * 'And what do you wish?' he said at last.
 * Frodo and Galadriel

'And now at last it comes. '''You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!''' ' She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. ''' 'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.' '''
 * I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was brought within my grasp. The evil that was devised long ago works on in many ways, whether Sauron himself stands or falls. Would not that have been a noble deed to set to the credit of his Ring, if I had taken it by force or fear from my guest?

 * Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.
 * Galadriel

Farewell to Lórien

 * Do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.
 * Celeborn

 * It is said that the skill of the Dwarves is in their hands rather than in their tongues, yet that is not true of Gimli. For none have ever made to me a request so bold and yet so courteous...I do not foretell, for all foretelling is now vain: on the one hand lies darkness, and on the other only hope. But if hope should not fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.
 * Galadriel

 * 'Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy.'
 * Gimli

 * 'Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zâram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves.'
 * Gimli

The Great River

 * 'Time does not tarry ever,' he said; 'but change and growth is not in all things and places alike. For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.'
 * Legolas

The Breaking of the Fellowship

 * 'Whoa, Sam Gamgee!' he said aloud. 'Your legs are too short, so use your head!'

 * It is no good trying to escape you. But I'm glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together. We will go, and may the others find a safe road!
 * Frodo

title: The Fellowship of the Ring


text:
The Two Towers

The Two Towers is the second volume of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, containing Book III: The Treason of Isengard and Book IV: The Ring Goes East.

For quotes from the 2002 movie adaptation, see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

The Riders of Rohan

 * [At Aragorn's mention of their pursuit of his friends the Halflings, a rider, Eothain, laughs and says in disbelief:] 'Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?' [Aragorn responds] 'A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.'...." 'Time is pressing,' said the rider, not heeding Aragorn."

 * 'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'  'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'

 *  'The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge of safety, for himself or for others,' said Aragorn. 'There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.'

Treebeard

 * Do not be hasty, that is my motto.

 * Learn now the lore of Living Creatures! First name the four, the free peoples: Eldest of all, the elf-children; Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses; Ent the earthborn, old as mountains; Man the mortal, master of horses

 * Not so hasty! You call yourselves hobbits? But you should not go telling just anybody. You'll be letting out your own right names if you're not careful.

 * My name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.

 * Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!

The White Rider

 * 'Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.'

 * I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.
 * Gandalf

 * He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.
 * Gandalf

 * It is a comfort not to be mistaken at all points. Do I not know it only too well!
 * Gandalf

 * The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.
 * Aragorn, of Gandalf

'Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge,' said Gandalf.
 * 'Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin's Bridge, and none has measured it,' said Gimli.

 * I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent back – for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top...I was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world. There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth.
 * Gandalf

The King of the Golden Hall

 * Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning, Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

 * We are all friends here. Or should be; for the laughter of Mordor will be our only reward, if we quarrel.
 * Gandalf

 * Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom.
 * Háma

'Say also,' said Gandalf, 'that to crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.'
 * 'I owe much to Éomer,' said Théoden. 'Faithful heart may have froward tongue.'

The Road to Isengard

 * I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of strange places, and walk visible under the Sun.

 * So that is the King of Rohan. A fine old fellow. Very polite.

The Voice of Saruman

 * The guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.
 * Gandalf

 * 'The treacherous are ever distrustful,' answered Gandalf wearily.

 * Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.

 * Often does hatred hurt itself!

The Palantír

 * Oft evil will shall evil mar.

 * There is nothing that Sauron cannot turn to evil uses.

 * Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.

The Taming of Sméagol

 * Be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

 * We promises, yes I promise!' said Gollum. 'I will serve the master of the Precious. Good master, good Sméagol,  gollum, gollum!

The Passage of the Marshes

 * If the One goes into the Fire, and we are at hand? I ask you, Sam, are we ever likely to need bread again? I think not. If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom, that is all we can do. More than I can, I begin to feel.

The Black Gate is Closed

 * It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. […] Gollum in his own way, and with much more excuse as his acquaintance was much briefer, may have made a similar mistake, confusing kindness and blindness.

 * He had all the injured air of a liar suspected when for once he has told the truth, or part of it.

The Window on the West

 * I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood.
 * Faramir to Frodo

 * It's a pity that folk as talk about fighting the Enemy can't let others do their bit in their own way without interfering. He'd be mighty pleased, if he could see you now. Think he'd got a new friend, he would.

 * 'For myself," said Faramir, "I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens.

 * War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

 * Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.

 * We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt. Not if I found it on the highway would I take it  I said. Even if I were such a man as to desire this thing, and even though I knew not clearly what this thing was when I spoke, still I should take those words as a vow, and be held by them.

 * I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee.

 * The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.

The Forbidden Pool

 * 'We are lost, lost,' said Gollum. 'No name, no business, no Precious, nothing. Only empty. Only hungry; yes, we are hungry. A few little fishes, nasty bony little fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death. So wise they are; so just, so very just.'

Journey to the Cross-roads

 * They cannot conquer forever!

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

 * Who can now hold the fords when the King of the Nine Riders comes? And other armies will come. I am too late. All is lost. I tarried on the way. All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.

 * Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else ever knew about it was beside the purpose.

 * The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it.

 * I never thought of that before! We've got — you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?

 * 'No, they never end as tales,' said Frodo. 'But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later — or sooner.'

 *  'I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, or course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: "Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!" And they'll say: "Yes, that's one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave. wasn't he, dad?" "Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that's saying a lot."'

 * 'To hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. "I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That's what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad?"'

 * 'We're going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad; we don't want to read any more."'

 * Even Gollum might be good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway... I wonder if he thinks he's the hero or the villain?

 * For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

 * The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall. 'Sneaking, sneaking!' he hissed. 'Hobbits always so polite, yes. O nice hobbits! Sméagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find. Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak. Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice.'

The Choices of Master Samwise

 * The Ring'll be found, and there'll be no more songs.

title: The Two Towers