To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted – Nevermore!
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?
I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness – the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.
A lie travels round the world while truth is putting her boots on.
I heed not that my earthly lot Hath – little of Earth in it – That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute: – I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer by.
If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.
One half of the pleasure experienced at a theatre arises from the spectator’s sympathy with the rest of the audience, and, especially from his belief in their sympathy with him.
No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter than you and I.
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart – an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.
To observe attentively is to remember distinctly.
I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief.
If a man deceives me once, shame on him; if he deceives me twice, shame on me.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness.
If a poem hasn’t ripped apart your soul; you haven’t experienced poetry.
It is with literature as with law or empire – an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.
A wise man hears one word and understands two.
I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life – except in hope, which is by no means bankable.
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.