Quotes from The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Edgar Allan Poe ·  38 pages

Rating: (18.8K votes)


“It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


“There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


“Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities---that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


“I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


“He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue



“To look at a star by glances—to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


About the author

Edgar Allan Poe
Born place: in Boston, Massachusetts, The United States
Born date January 19, 1809
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Some things shouldn't be seen. Some things don't need to be said.”
― Emmi Itäranta, quote from Memory of Water


“Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years. You don’t even notice it creeping up. It happens, trickle by trickle. You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a ‘taken-for-granted’ attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often too late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone has been established. A zone that is hard to get out of.”
― Preeti Shenoy, quote from The Secret Wish List


“There is something about the very idea of a city which is central to the understanding of a planet like Earth, and particularly the understanding of that part of the then-existing group-civilization which called itself the West. That idea, to my mind, met its materialist apotheosis in Berlin at the time of the Wall.

Perhaps I go into some sort of shock when I experience something deeply; I'm not sure, even at this ripe middle-age, but I have to admit that what I recall of Berlin is not arranged in my memory in any normal, chronological sequence. My only excuse is that Berlin itself was so abnormal - and yet so bizarrely representative - it was like something unreal; an occasionally macabre Disneyworld which was so much a part of the real world (and the realpolitik world), so much a crystallization of everything these people had managed to produce, wreck, reinstate, venerate, condemn and worship in their history that it defiantly transcended everything it exemplified, and took on a single - if multifariously faceted - meaning of its own; a sum, an answer, a statement no city in its right mind would want or be able to arrive at.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The State of the Art


“Rose wasn't 'ordinary'. What was I supposed to do? Wrap her in cotton wool? Tell her 'Here, I could give you the universe, but I'm not going to in case you get hurt? There's all this stuff out there, all these planets, all these wonders, but I want you to stay at home and work in a shop?”
― Jacqueline Rayner, quote from Doctor Who: The Stone Rose


“It really is an instinct, the knack of dealing with irrational people, Natalie was thinking; I suppose any mind like mine, which is so close, actually, to the irrational and so tempted by it, is able easily to pass the dividing line between rational and irrational and communicate with someone drunk, or insane, or asleep.”
― Shirley Jackson, quote from Hangsaman


Interesting books

The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective
(10.8K)
The Noticer: Sometim...
by Andy Andrews
The Search for WondLa
(9.7K)
The Search for WondL...
by Tony DiTerlizzi
The Pursuit of Holiness
(15.7K)
The Pursuit of Holin...
by Jerry Bridges
Tenderness
(2.4K)
Tenderness
by Robert Cormier
After You'd Gone
(7.9K)
After You'd Gone
by Maggie O'Farrell
Brooklyn
(74.4K)
Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.