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Edgar Allan Poe Quotes about Character

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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

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 silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?

Edgar Allan Poe
Silly, Heart, Character
Edgar Allan Poe (2004). “The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe”, p.63, Wordsworth Editions

There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.

Edgar Allan Poe
Character, Half, Coincidence
Edgar Allan Poe (2012). “Tales of Terror and Detection”, p.27, Courier Corporation

In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.

Edgar Allan Poe
Character, Space, Development
Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.2103, Delphi Classics

He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.

Edgar Allan Poe
Horse, Character, Remarkable
Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems”, p.334, Bottletree Books LLC

I might refer at once, if necessary, to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely extended excitement.

Edgar Allan Poe
Memories, Character, Long Ago
Edgar Allan Poe (1927). “Tales by Edgar Allan Poe”, p.401, Dimitrios Spyridon Chytiris

We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused - in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery - by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press - their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.

Edgar Allan Poe
Character, Light, Hands
Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell, Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1857). “The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: Literati”, p.499

Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.

Edgar Allan Poe
Character, Men, Giving
Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Parker Willis, James Russell Lowell, Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1850). “The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: With Notices of His Life and Genius”, p.283

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