The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.

Poe’s remark frames “genius” less as effortless brilliance than as an exacting standard of artistic completeness. The “shudder” at imperfection suggests a temperament that experiences partial expression as a kind of falsification: to say something that falls short of the whole truth or full aesthetic effect is, for the true artist, worse than saying nothing. The preference for silence implies discipline and restraint—an ethic of withholding until form and meaning cohere. Read in light of Poe’s critical ideals (unity of effect, rigorous construction), the line elevates meticulous craft and self-critique over mere productivity or improvisation.