The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
Meaning of the quote
The quote means that a group of people, or a mob, is easily influenced by their own imagination and ideas. The mob can be calmly and quietly directed or manipulated by those who understand this and know how to appeal to the mob's imagination.
About Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, and literary critic best known for his Gothic fiction and mystery stories. He is considered a central figure of Romanticism and early American literature, and is credited as the inventor of the detective fiction genre. Poe’s life and work had a significant impact on the development of literature and various other fields.
More quotes from Edgar Allan Poe
We loved with a love that was more than love.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The generous Critic fann’d the Poet’s fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‘the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.’ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‘Artist.’
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)
I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror.
American writer and literary critic (1809-1849)