The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls
Not Edgar Allan Poe — a 21st-century Twitter lineUnknown — probably the @Edgar_Allan_Poe Twitter personaTweet of 9 November 2011, per Quote Investigator
Quote Investigator ↗ found this line in none of Poe’s stories or essays. It traces the popular wording to a 9 November 2011 tweet by the social-media persona @Edgar_Allan_Poe, which it calls “probably the origin”; Poe died in 1849.
“The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls” not Edgar Allan Poe; probably from a 9 November 2011 tweet by the @Edgar_Allan_Poe persona account (Quote Investigator). Via Quotle.info
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of character, courage and truth. Theme: "The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the line actually turns up
Found in Poe’s works?
No — Quote Investigator located it in none of his stories or essays
Probable origin (per QI)
Tweet by the @Edgar_Allan_Poe persona, 9 November 2011
Similar earlier line (per QI)
New York Times TV review of Mazes and Monsters, 28 December 1982
Anchor research
Quote Investigator, 18 April 2013 (updated 21 February 2025)
The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.
The wording as Quote Investigator transcribes it from the 9 November 2011 @Edgar_Allan_Poe tweet. No version of this sentence appears in any Poe text QI examined.
Quote Investigator ↗ reports it has not found the expression in Poe’s stories or essays, and concludes: “The statement was constructed long after the death of Poe.”
The same QI article ↗ identifies a 9 November 2011 tweet by the persona @Edgar_Allan_Poe as “the primary locus of popularization for the quote and probably the origin.”
QI also notes a similar thought decades earlier, in a 28 December 1982 New York Times review of the TV film Mazes and Monsters: “The most frightening monsters are the ones that exist in our minds” (QI ↗).
This sentence is not from any work by Poe, so his public-domain writings do not cover it. Its probable source is an anonymous 2011 tweet by a persona account, and we assert no copyright status for the wording.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why it gets pinned on Poe
Poe is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for invented quotations, and a dark line about inner monsters sounds like him. A Twitter account posting in his name made the pairing look official.
✕
Quote sites, image macros, social mediaEdgar Allan Poe Misattributed
Quote collections credit the line to Poe without a source. Quote Investigator ↗ found it in none of his stories or essays and traces it to a 9 November 2011 tweet by the @Edgar_Allan_Poe persona — an account using Poe’s name, not Poe himself, who died in 1849.
✓No Poe text contains this sentence. Its probable origin is a 2011 tweet by a Poe-persona Twitter account, per Quote Investigator ↗.
Context
Why it feels like Poe
The idea that the real horror lives inside us runs through Poe’s fiction — narrators undone by their own guilt and compulsions. That resemblance is what makes the line believable, but resemblance is not authorship: the sentence itself first shows up on Twitter, not in any of his tales, poems or essays.
A Twitter account that writes in a famous author’s voice can launch a “quote” that is then copied without the account name, leaving only the author’s. Quote Investigator’s finding fits that pattern.
The statement was constructed long after the death of Poe. — Quote Investigator
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1809–1849 · American poet, short-story writer & critic
Poe was the American master of the macabre, author of The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher. His tales of guilt and self-destruction make him a natural magnet for lines about “inner monsters” — but this sentence is not in his writings; it surfaced on Twitter more than 160 years after his death.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available research
Not found in Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Probable origin: tweet by the @Edgar_Allan_Poe persona, 9 November 2011, as reported in Quote Investigator, “The Scariest Monsters Are the Ones That Lurk Within Our Souls,” April 18, 2013 (updated February 21, 2025), https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/18/scary/.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-scariest-monsters-are-the-ones-that-lurk-within-our/