QuoteProject
Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man.
Edgar Allan Poe
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Literature elevates the human experience and is a profound pursuit.

In this quote, Edgar Allan Poe emphasizes the nobility of literature as a profession, suggesting that it is the highest calling for humankind. He implies that engaging with literature allows for deep reflection, creativity, and a unique contribution to society, positioning authors and writers as essential figures in human culture.

Themes

LiteratureNobilityProfessionHuman ExperienceWriting

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech at a literary festival to celebrate the power of storytelling.

More from Edgar Allan Poe

But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
Edgar Allan PoeRead
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Edgar Allan PoeRead

Similar quotes

The artist doesn't really think about consequences - he or she does the work, stands back and looks at and thinks, 'Hmm, that could have worked better like this.' But as a person who needs to sell tickets to do the next work, one needs to analyze how it does or does not hit its mark.
Twyla TharpRead
Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking the residue of all that material you absorbed over time.
Tom WaitsRead
Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous.
Virginia PostrelRead
Oprah Winfrey represents the most ingenious and creative expression of black spiritual genius in the public mainstream that we've had in quite a long time, if ever.
Michael Eric DysonRead
What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm - the relationship between shapes and values.
Henri Cartier-BressonRead
The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.
Samuel JohnsonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Edgar Allan Poe | QuoteProject