The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that religious pioneers and missionaries have caused more conflict than any other group in history.
Edgar Allan Poe's statement reflects a critical viewpoint on the role of religion and its advocates in human history, suggesting that their fervor and zeal in spreading religious beliefs have often led to division, strife, and warfare. Rather than being solely a force for peace and unity, he argues that the actions and motivations of these religious figures have contributed significantly to societal discord and conflict across cultures and time.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of religion on society, this quote can be used to illustrate the possible negative consequences of religious fervor.
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.
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.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
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?
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.
Taxes are what we pay for civilized society
Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.
I think that certainty is a closed door, It's the end of the conversation. Doubt is an open door.
A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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