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.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how excessive discussion can obscure understanding rather than clarify it.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote reflects the paradox of discourse, where a single point may seem overly complicated and thus receives undue attention, while the vast majority of topics are misunderstood due to excessive debate. This suggests that sometimes the act of discussing something too much can cloud its clarity, illustrating the idea that less is often more when it comes to understanding complex ideas.
In practice
This quote can be used in a classroom setting to discuss the importance of concise communication.
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.
I think all things are political... How women are portrayed - that's a big thing for me. What is this role trying to say about women? Is this woman weak or victimised, and, if so, do we get to understand why?
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Surely the wake left behind by mankind's forward march reveals its movement just as clearly as the spray thrown up elsewhere by the prow.
Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends.
It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.
What are men? Mortal gods. _x000D_ What are gods? Immortal men.
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