Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Alexander Pope, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Alexander Pope quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 697 Alexander Pope quotes for you to read and share.
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain. The wond'ring forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call. And headlong streams hand listening in their fall! -- Alexander Pope
Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can. -- Alexander Pope
Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one. -- Alexander Pope
False happiness is like false money; it passes for a time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss. -- Alexander Pope
A pear-tree planted nigh:
'Twas charg'd with fruit that made a goodly show,
And hung with dangling pears was every bough. -- Alexander Pope
At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense. -- Alexander Pope
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
With whom my muse began, with who shall end. -- Alexander Pope
What nature wants, commodious gold bestows; 'Tis thus we cut the bread another sows. -- Alexander Pope
No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or lap-dogs breathe their last. -- Alexander Pope
The approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade. -- Alexander Pope
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound, And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. -- Alexander Pope
In various talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies. -- Alexander Pope
To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake. -- Alexander Pope
All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. -- Alexander Pope
Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew. -- Alexander Pope
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies. -- Alexander Pope
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side. -- Alexander Pope
Education forms the common mind. -- Alexander Pope
There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day. -- Alexander Pope
Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. -- Alexander Pope
Whenever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he were a rich man. -- Alexander Pope
Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll'd, And vanquished realms supply recording gold? -- Alexander Pope
Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year. -- Alexander Pope
A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal, is more than armies to the public weal. -- Alexander Pope
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools and pageant of a day;
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe. -- Alexander Pope
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend. -- Alexander Pope
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting? -- Alexander Pope
Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies. -- Alexander Pope
And see, my son! the hour is on its way,
That lifts the Goddess to imperial sway;
This favourite isle, long severed from her reign,
Doveline, she gathers to her wings again -- Alexander Pope
Thus God and nature linked the gen'ral frame, And bade self-love and social be the same. -- Alexander Pope
Our judgments, like our watches, none
go just alike, yet each believes his own -- Alexander Pope
Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. -- Alexander Pope
First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art. -- Alexander Pope
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate.
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike. -- Alexander Pope
Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last. -- Alexander Pope
Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use. -- Alexander Pope
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend. -- Alexander Pope
A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach. -- Alexander Pope
All other goods by Fortune's hands are given; A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven. -- Alexander Pope
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same belov'd, contented thing. -- Alexander Pope
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. -- Alexander Pope
Celia
Celia, we know, is sixty-five,
Yet Celia's face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,
While summer in her face is seen.
How cruel Celia's fate, who hence
Our heart's devotion cannot try;
Too pretty for our reverence,
Too ancient for our gallantry! -- Alexander Pope
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n. -- Alexander Pope
Horses (thou say'st) and asses men may try,
And ring suspected vessels ere they buy;
But wives, a random choice, untried they take;
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake;
Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away,
And all the woman glares in open day. -- Alexander Pope
Tis use alone that sanctifies expense
And splendor borrows all her rays from sense. -- Alexander Pope
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head! Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! See Mystery to Mathematics fly! -- Alexander Pope
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave. -- Alexander Pope
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field. -- Alexander Pope
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labor when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain. -- Alexander Pope
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven. -- Alexander Pope
What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? -- Alexander Pope
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? -- Alexander Pope
Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best. -- Alexander Pope
See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace. -- Alexander Pope
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? -- Alexander Pope
That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood. -- Alexander Pope
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd Make and maintain the balance of the mind. -- Alexander Pope
Oh let me live my own! and die so too!
("To live and die is all I have to do:")
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books I please. -- Alexander Pope
At present we can only reason of the divine justice from what we know of justice in man. When we are in other scenes, we may have truer and nobler ideas of it; but while we are in this life, we can only speak from the volume that is laid open before us. -- Alexander Pope
Others import yet nobler arts from France, Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance. -- Alexander Pope
For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 5 While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began. -- Alexander Pope
O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes. -- Alexander Pope
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost? -- Alexander Pope
Wit and judgment often are at strife. -- Alexander Pope
While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave. -- Alexander Pope
Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind. -- Alexander Pope
Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him. -- Alexander Pope
The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)
-Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Stanza 1. -- Alexander Pope
Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, their beauty withered, and their verdure lost! -- Alexander Pope
The sound must seem an echo to the sense. -- Alexander Pope
Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind! -- Alexander Pope
Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand. -- Alexander Pope
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead! -- Alexander Pope
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd -- Alexander Pope
Invention furnishes Art with all her materials, and without it, Judgement itself can at best but steal wisely. -- Alexander Pope
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad. -- Alexander Pope
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,Or gave his father grief but when he died. -- Alexander Pope
Thy voice I seem in ev'ry hymn to hear, with ev'ry bead I drop too soft a tear ... -- Alexander Pope
We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the misfortunes of the mind than for those of the body, when they are such as he cannot help; were this thoroughly considered we should no more laugh at a man for having his brains cracked than for having his head broke. -- Alexander Pope
Count all th' advantage prosperous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want
which is, to pass for good. -- Alexander Pope
And not a vanity is given in vain. -- Alexander Pope
Where beams of imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away. -- Alexander Pope
Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another. -- Alexander Pope
Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. -- Alexander Pope
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still. -- Alexander Pope
Who dare to love their country, and be poor. -- Alexander Pope
Rogues in rags are kept in countenance by rogues in ruffles. -- Alexander Pope
No more the mounting larks, while Daphne sings, Shall, list'ning, in mid-air suspend their wings. -- Alexander Pope
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. -- Alexander Pope
He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. -- Alexander Pope
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change. -- Alexander Pope
We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives them to.
[Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727] -- Alexander Pope
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, And the press'd watch return'd a silver sound. Belinda still her downy pillow prest, Her guardian SYLPH prolong'd the balmy rest: -- Alexander Pope
Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join. -- Alexander Pope
Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate. -- Alexander Pope
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurled: / The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! -- Alexander Pope
The pure and noble, the graceful and dignified, simplicity of language is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scriptures and Homer. The whole book of Job, with regard both to sublimity of thought and morality, exceeds, beyond all comparison, the most noble parts of Homer. -- Alexander Pope
Unblemish'd let me live or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none! -- Alexander Pope
Be silent always when you doubt your sense. -- Alexander Pope
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits. -- Alexander Pope
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day.
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea,
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon. -- Alexander Pope
True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can. -- Alexander Pope
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill:
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage. -- Alexander Pope
I as little fear that God will damn a person who has charity as I hope that the priests can save one who has not. -- Alexander Pope
But touch me, and no minister so sore.
Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song. -- Alexander Pope
Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,
Who lost my heart while I preserv'd my sheep. -- Alexander Pope
Music resembles poetry, in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach. -- Alexander Pope
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale. -- Alexander Pope
The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more. -- Alexander Pope
For he lives twice who can at once employ,
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy. -- Alexander Pope
Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. -- Alexander Pope
And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too. -- Alexander Pope
Every woman is at heart a rake. -- Alexander Pope
Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath. -- Alexander Pope
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! -- Alexander Pope
There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit. -- Alexander Pope
In death a hero, as in life a friend! -- Alexander Pope
Sure flattery never traveled so far as three thousand miles; it is now only for truth, which over takes all things, to reach you at this distance. -- Alexander Pope
No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her. -- Alexander Pope
Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have. -- Alexander Pope
Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute. -- Alexander Pope
Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness. -- Alexander Pope
Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? -- Alexander Pope
What is fame? a fancied life in others' breath. -- Alexander Pope
Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach, from infinite to Thee, From Thee to nothing. -- Alexander Pope
Every professional was once an amateur. -- Alexander Pope
Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance. -- Alexander Pope
For critics, as they are birds of prey, have ever a natural inclination to carrion. -- Alexander Pope
If it be the chief point of friendship to comply with a friend's notions and inclinations he possesses this is an eminent degree; he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk, which is more that many good friends can pretend to do. -- Alexander Pope
How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight! -- Alexander Pope
Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky. -- Alexander Pope
Averse alike to flatter, or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend. -- Alexander Pope
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live. -- Alexander Pope
O happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die. -- Alexander Pope
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence. -- Alexander Pope
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
But Health consists with Temperance alone,
And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own. -- Alexander Pope
Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide,
First strip off all her equipage of Pride,
Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress,
Or Learning's Luxury or idleness,
Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain
Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain. -- Alexander Pope
All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers; hushed are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers. -- Alexander Pope
He knows to live who keeps the middle state, and neither leans on this side nor on that. -- Alexander Pope
Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky. -- Alexander Pope
Is not absence death to those who love? -- Alexander Pope
See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;
Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot. -- Alexander Pope
When to the Permanent is sacrificed the Mutable, the prize is thine: the drop returneth whence it came. The Open Path leads to the changeless change - Non-Being, the glorious state of Absoluteness, the Bliss past human thought. -- Alexander Pope
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find two of a face as soon as of a mind. -- Alexander Pope
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, and fills up all the mighty void of sense. -- Alexander Pope
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear. -- Alexander Pope
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools. -- Alexander Pope
The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool. -- Alexander Pope
Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content, And the gay Conscience of a life well spent, Calm ev'ry thought, inspirit ev'ry grace, Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face. -- Alexander Pope
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise. -- Alexander Pope
On wings of wind came flying all abroad. -- Alexander Pope
These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd! -- Alexander Pope
To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves. -- Alexander Pope
Inscriptions here of various Names I view'd,
The greater part by hostile time subdu'd;
Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And Poets once had promis'd they should last. -- Alexander Pope
Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought. -- Alexander Pope
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail! -- Alexander Pope
Out with it, Dunciad: let the secret pass -
That secret to each fool - that he's an ass.
The truth once told (and whereby should we lie?),
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? Take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool. -- Alexander Pope
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs. -- Alexander Pope
To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines. -- Alexander Pope
Whoe'er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally. -- Alexander Pope
The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor'd through out passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. -- Alexander Pope
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies. -- Alexander Pope
Our grandsire, Adam, ere of Eve possesst,
Alone, and e'en in Paradise unblest,
With mournful looks the blissful scenes survey'd,
And wander'd in the solitary shade.
The Maker say, took pity, and bestow'd
Woman, the last, the best reserv'd of God. -- Alexander Pope
Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me. -- Alexander Pope
Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print. -- Alexander Pope
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife gives all the strength and color of our life. -- Alexander Pope
One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit. -- Alexander Pope
Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity. -- Alexander Pope
The heart resolves this matter in a trice, Men only feel the smart, but not the vice. -- Alexander Pope
Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe. -- Alexander Pope
Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid. -- Alexander Pope
The people's voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God. -- Alexander Pope
A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity. -- Alexander Pope
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe. -- Alexander Pope
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come. -- Alexander Pope
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. -- Alexander Pope
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all. -- Alexander Pope
An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action. -- Alexander Pope
A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left. -- Alexander Pope
Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile -- Alexander Pope
Most authors steal their works, or buy. -- Alexander Pope
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again. -- Alexander Pope
For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends -- Alexander Pope
Physicians are in general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know. -- Alexander Pope
With varying vanities, from ev'ry part, They shift the moving Toyshop of their heart; 100 Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, Beaux banish beaux, and coaches coaches drive. -- Alexander Pope
It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed. -- Alexander Pope
Sure of their qualities and demanding praise, more go to ruined fortunes than are raised. -- Alexander Pope
Wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense! -- Alexander Pope
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever. -- Alexander Pope
The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship. -- Alexander Pope
When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground. I would enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive and seeing another enjoy it. -- Alexander Pope
But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit. -- Alexander Pope
Z - ds! damn the lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil! Plague on't!'t is past a jest - nay prithee, pox! Give her the hair" - he spoke, and rapp'd his box. -- Alexander Pope
In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. -- Alexander Pope
The Physician, by the study and inspection of urine and ordure, approves himself in the science; and in like sort should our author accustom and exercise his imagination upon the dregs of nature. -- Alexander Pope
Trade it may help, society extend,
But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend:
It raises armies in a nation's aid,
But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd. -- Alexander Pope
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man. -- Alexander Pope
This Nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourish'd two Locks, which graceful hung behind 20 In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. -- Alexander Pope
Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down. -- Alexander Pope
The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order. -- Alexander Pope
Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise. -- Alexander Pope
To the Elysian shades dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades. -- Alexander Pope
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies. -- Alexander Pope
No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. -- Alexander Pope
There is a majesty in simplicity. -- Alexander Pope
Wit is the lowest form of humor. -- Alexander Pope
Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 105 Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign. Methinks already I your tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded toast, And all your honour in a whisper lost! 110 How shall I, then, your helpless fame -- Alexander Pope
Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best. -- Alexander Pope
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep. -- Alexander Pope
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade,
The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. -- Alexander Pope
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather and prunello. -- Alexander Pope
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too? -- Alexander Pope
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God. -- Alexander Pope
Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing. -- Alexander Pope
For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned.The berries crackle, and the mill turns round ... At once they gratify their scent and taste.And frequent cups prolong the rich repast ... Coffee (which makes the politician wise And see through all things with his half-shut eyes). -- Alexander Pope
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. -- Alexander Pope
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or a quick conception and an easy delivery. -- Alexander Pope
The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife, / To help me through this long disease, my life. -- Alexander Pope
Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,
Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide:
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. -- Alexander Pope
Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence. -- Alexander Pope
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water. -- Alexander Pope
Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick. -- Alexander Pope
I begin where most people end, with a full conviction of the emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory nature of all human pleasures. -- Alexander Pope
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. -- Alexander Pope
Our plenteous streams a various race supply, The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye, The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd, The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold, Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains. -- Alexander Pope
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age. -- Alexander Pope
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream; -- Alexander Pope
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains. -- Alexander Pope
A naked lover bound and bleeding lies! -- Alexander Pope
Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think or bravely die? -- Alexander Pope
Old men, for the most part, are like old chronicles that give you dull but true accounts of times past, and are worth knowing only on that score. -- Alexander Pope
Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;
And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain -- Alexander Pope
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole. -- Alexander Pope
No craving void left aching in the soul. -- Alexander Pope
Of darkness visible so much be lent, as half to show, half veil, the deep intent. -- Alexander Pope
Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed. -- Alexander Pope
From the moment one sets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully, as a king's favorite or a king. -- Alexander Pope
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. -- Alexander Pope
By music minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
...
Warriors she fires with animated sounds.
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds. -- Alexander Pope
chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd. -- Alexander Pope
Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear. While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pampered goose: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. -- Alexander Pope
Eve left Adam, to meet the Devil in private. -- Alexander Pope
Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel. -- Alexander Pope
Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms. -- Alexander Pope
Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire. -- Alexander Pope
A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes. -- Alexander Pope
A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of. -- Alexander Pope
The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. -- Alexander Pope
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see -- Alexander Pope
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate. -- Alexander Pope
The search of our future being is but a needless, anxious, and haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what, without all this solicitude, we shall know a little later. -- Alexander Pope
Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross? -- Alexander Pope
Only music has the ability to take you to the edge of reality and allow you to peek in for a moment. -- Alexander Pope
Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease! -- Alexander Pope
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. -- Alexander Pope
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend. -- Alexander Pope
For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. -- Alexander Pope
If I am right, Thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O, teach my heart
To find that better way! -- Alexander Pope
Sleep and death, two twins of winged race,
Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace. -- Alexander Pope
And write about it, Goddess, and about it! -- Alexander Pope
The man that loves and laughs must sure do well. -- Alexander Pope
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years. -- Alexander Pope
'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do. -- Alexander Pope
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know How far your genius taste and learning go. -- Alexander Pope
Virtue alone is happiness below. -- Alexander Pope
Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother
About one vice and fall into another. -- Alexander Pope
But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. -- Alexander Pope
But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat,
The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat,
To closer shades the panting flocks remove;
Ye gods! And is there no relief for love? -- Alexander Pope
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools. -- Alexander Pope
Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. -- Alexander Pope
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave. -- Alexander Pope
To err is human; to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope"
Excerpt From: Moriarty, Liane. "The Husband's Secret. -- Alexander Pope
On cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow. -- Alexander Pope
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all! -- Alexander Pope
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude. -- Alexander Pope
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate and rot. -- Alexander Pope
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charm'd the small-pox, or chased old age away;
Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce,
Or who would learn one earthly thing of use? -- Alexander Pope
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. -- Alexander Pope
Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. -- Alexander Pope
Do you find yourself making excuses when you do not perform? Shed the excuses and face reality. Excuses are the loser's way out. They will mar your credibility and stunt your personal growth. -- Alexander Pope
Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste? -- Alexander Pope
And little eagles wave their wings in gold. -- Alexander Pope
That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know. -- Alexander Pope
But thousands die without or this or that, Die, and endow a college or a cat. -- Alexander Pope
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. -- Alexander Pope
Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;. Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought. -- Alexander Pope
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee. -- Alexander Pope
No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n, Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n; But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise. -- Alexander Pope
Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well? -- Alexander Pope
Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n. -- Alexander Pope
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit. -- Alexander Pope
But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey. -- Alexander Pope
Expression is the dress of thought. -- Alexander Pope
When to mischief mortals bend their will, how soon they find it instruments of ill. -- Alexander Pope
Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source. -- Alexander Pope
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! -- Alexander Pope
There is no study that is not capable of delighting us, after a little application to it. -- Alexander Pope
Oh! be thou blest with all that Heaven can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure-and a friend. -- Alexander Pope
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes: the glorious fault of angels and of gods. -- Alexander Pope
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day. -- Alexander Pope
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air. -- Alexander Pope
What riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. What more? Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little? -- Alexander Pope
When rumours increase, and when there is an abundance of noise and clamour, believe the second report. -- Alexander Pope
See! From the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings;
Short is his joy! He feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. -- Alexander Pope
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fixed, 'tis fixed as in a frost. -- Alexander Pope
Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example. -- Alexander Pope
To teach vain Wits that Science little known,
T' admire Superior Sense, and doubt their own! -- Alexander Pope
A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it. -- Alexander Pope
But why insult the poor, affront the great?'
A knave's a knave, to me, in every state. -- Alexander Pope
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore;
What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. -- Alexander Pope
If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great. -- Alexander Pope
The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres. -- Alexander Pope
But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate. -- Alexander Pope
Here thou, great Anna! Whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea. -- Alexander Pope
The grave unites; where e'en the great find rest, And blended lie th' oppressor and th' oppressed! -- Alexander Pope
The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them -- Alexander Pope
Fame can never make us lie down contentedly on a deathbed. -- Alexander Pope
T is true,t is certain; man though dead retains, Part of himself: the immortal mind remains. -- Alexander Pope
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things, ... -- Alexander Pope
Act well your part; there all the honour lies. -- Alexander Pope
Curse on all laws but those which love has made. -- Alexander Pope
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state. -- Alexander Pope
For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best. -- Alexander Pope
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. -- Alexander Pope
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence? -- Alexander Pope
Love the offender, yet detest the offense. -- Alexander Pope
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing. -- Alexander Pope
The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more. -- Alexander Pope
Where'er you walk cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade. Where'er you tread the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes. -- Alexander Pope
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. -- Alexander Pope
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires. -- Alexander Pope
Most women have no characters at all. -- Alexander Pope
As some to church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there. -- Alexander Pope
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came. -- Alexander Pope
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold. -- Alexander Pope
For thee I dim these eye and stuff this head With all such reading as was never read. -- Alexander Pope
Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, 'Tis for mine
For me kind nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower. -- Alexander Pope
The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won. -- Alexander Pope
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine. -- Alexander Pope
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above. -- Alexander Pope
And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. -- Alexander Pope
Some who grow dull religious straight commence
And gain in morals what they lose in sense. -- Alexander Pope
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. -- Alexander Pope
Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind. -- Alexander Pope
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice. -- Alexander Pope
Die of a rose in aromatic pain. -- Alexander Pope
Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring. Think what an equipage thou hast in Air, 45 And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair. -- Alexander Pope
Heaven gave to woman the peculiar grace
To spin, to weep, and cully human race. -- Alexander Pope
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world. -- Alexander Pope
Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies
From head to ears, and now from ears to eyes. -- Alexander Pope
The proper study of Mankind is Man. -- Alexander Pope
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine. -- Alexander Pope
True self-love and social are the same. -- Alexander Pope
Pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and something of a neat cast of verse are properly the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry. -- Alexander Pope
Live like yourself, was soon my lady's word, And lo! two puddings smok'd upon the board. -- Alexander Pope
The scripture in times of disputes is like an open town in times of war, which serves in differently the occasions of both parties. -- Alexander Pope
A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. -- Alexander Pope
And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. -- Alexander Pope
At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun. -- Alexander Pope
Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree. -- Alexander Pope
Ladies, like variegated tulips, show
'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe. -- Alexander Pope
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? -- Alexander Pope
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss. -- Alexander Pope
Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men. -- Alexander Pope
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot A heap of dust alone remains of thee 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be! -- Alexander Pope
Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon. -- Alexander Pope
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise! -- Alexander Pope
Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod. -- Alexander Pope
Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad. -- Alexander Pope
The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of Man's error and misery. -- Alexander Pope
No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other. -- Alexander Pope
To buy books as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor. -- Alexander Pope
Still follow sense, of ev'ry art the soul, Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole. -- Alexander Pope
Though triumphs were to generals only due, crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too. -- Alexander Pope
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul. -- Alexander Pope
The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain. -- Alexander Pope
Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king. -- Alexander Pope
Modest plainness sets off sprightly wit,
For works may have more with than does 'em good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood. -- Alexander Pope
Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. -- Alexander Pope
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg. -- Alexander Pope
Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind. -- Alexander Pope
She sins with poets through pure love of wit -- Alexander Pope
Jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state. -- Alexander Pope
Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; the strength he gains is from the embrace he gives. -- Alexander Pope
What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease. -- Alexander Pope
The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on. -- Alexander Pope
Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense. -- Alexander Pope
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards. -- Alexander Pope
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. -- Alexander Pope
Intestine war no more our passions wage,
And giddy factions bear away their rage. -- Alexander Pope
Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics. -- Alexander Pope
O let us still the secret joy partake,
To follow virtue even for virtue's sake. -- Alexander Pope
Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
And if I lose thy love, I lose my all. -- Alexander Pope
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust. -- Alexander Pope
How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns; Contented breathes his native air,
In his own grounds -- Alexander Pope
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it. -- Alexander Pope
Genius involves both envy and calumny. -- Alexander Pope
All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return. -- Alexander Pope
Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn; A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn: A Judge is just, a Chanc'llor juster still; A Gownman learn'd; a Bishop what you will; Wise if a minister; but if a King, More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything. -- Alexander Pope
Heaven breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul. -- Alexander Pope
But just disease to luxury succeeds, And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds. -- Alexander Pope
"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart. -- Alexander Pope
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day. -- Alexander Pope
With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought. -- Alexander Pope
Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person; they make friendships as kings of old made leagues, who sacrificed some poor animal betwixt them, and commenced strict allies; so the ladies, after they have pulled some character to pieces, are from henceforth inviolable friends. -- Alexander Pope
Lo! the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way. -- Alexander Pope
And you, my Critics! in the chequer'd shade,
Admire new light thro' holes yourselves have made. -- Alexander Pope
What then remains, but well our power to use,
And keep good-humor still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. -- Alexander Pope
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand. -- Alexander Pope
Nothing is more certain than much of the force; as well as grace, of arguments or instructions depends their conciseness. -- Alexander Pope
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found. -- Alexander Pope
Of fight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die. -- Alexander Pope
In this commonplace world every one is said to be romantic who either admires a fine thing or does one. -- Alexander Pope
Whatever is, is right. -- Alexander Pope
Like following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect. -- Alexander Pope
He is the English Horace, -- Alexander Pope
Truth needs not flowers of speech. -- Alexander Pope
So vast is art, so narrow human wit. -- Alexander Pope
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think. -- Alexander Pope
Our business in the field of fight, Is not to question, but to prove our might. -- Alexander Pope
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. -- Alexander Pope
Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all . -- Alexander Pope
Cavil you may, but never criticise. -- Alexander Pope
Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding. -- Alexander Pope
The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength. -- Alexander Pope
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days! -- Alexander Pope
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. -- Alexander Pope
When two people compliment each other with the choice of anything, each of them generally gets that which he likes least. -- Alexander Pope
Passions are the gales of life. -- Alexander Pope
In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity. -- Alexander Pope
Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes, tenets with books, and principles with times. -- Alexander Pope
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise. -- Alexander Pope
With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactly what you did Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before And each mistake leads back to something worse. -- Alexander Pope
A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury, for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it. -- Alexander Pope
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. -- Alexander Pope
Atheists put on false courage and alacrity in the midst of their darkness and apprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go in the dark, will sing for fear. -- Alexander Pope
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old. -- Alexander Pope
Get your enemy to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you. -- Alexander Pope
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbor with himself. -- Alexander Pope
Search then the ruling passion: This clue, once found, unravels all the rest. -- Alexander Pope
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And when in act they cease, in prospect rise. -- Alexander Pope
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin. -- Alexander Pope
To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor. -- Alexander Pope
But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state? -- Alexander Pope
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod, Because the insult's not on man, but God? -- Alexander Pope
Who are next to knaves? Those that converse with them. -- Alexander Pope
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan. -- Alexander Pope
Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last. -- Alexander Pope
When we are young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we perceive it is too late to live as we proposed. -- Alexander Pope
She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys. -- Alexander Pope
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light. -- Alexander Pope
The hog that ploughs not, not obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all. -- Alexander Pope
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. -- Alexander Pope
I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts. -- Alexander Pope
I lose my patience, and I own it too,
When works are censur'd, not as bad but new;
While if our Elders break all reason's laws,
These fools demand not pardon but Applause. -- Alexander Pope
Beauty draws us with a single hair. -- Alexander Pope
Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve. -- Alexander Pope
All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety! -- Alexander Pope
And empty heads console with empty sound. -- Alexander Pope
Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know. -- Alexander Pope
Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous. -- Alexander Pope
The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare? For this your locks in paper durance bound, For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around? 100 For this with fillets strain'd your tender head, And bravely bore the double loads of lead? -- Alexander Pope
Give me again my hollow tree A crust of bread, and liberty! -- Alexander Pope
Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place. -- Alexander Pope
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose. -- Alexander Pope
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis true the hardest science to forget. -- Alexander Pope
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie. -- Alexander Pope
To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise! -- Alexander Pope
Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul. -- Alexander Pope
The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave. -- Alexander Pope
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart -- Alexander Pope
The lot of man - to suffer and to die. -- Alexander Pope
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven. -- Alexander Pope
Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. -- Alexander Pope
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When thro' the clouds he drives the trembling doves. -- Alexander Pope
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair. -- Alexander Pope
There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, 'Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed. -- Alexander Pope
It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at. -- Alexander Pope
A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature. -- Alexander Pope
It is very natural for a young friend and a young lover to think the persons they love have nothing to do but to please them. -- Alexander Pope
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heaven. -- Alexander Pope
Health consists with temperance alone. -- Alexander Pope
Men would be angels, angels would be gods. -- Alexander Pope
Consult the genius of the place, that paints as you plant, and as you work. -- Alexander Pope
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn. -- Alexander Pope
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead. -- Alexander Pope
I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me. -- Alexander Pope
I was not born for courts and great affairs, but I pay my debts, believe and say my prayers. -- Alexander Pope
Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom Lost in a convent's solitary gloom! -- Alexander Pope
How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains:
That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,
Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face! -- Alexander Pope
He best can paint them who shall feel them most. -- Alexander Pope
In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend. -- Alexander Pope
Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below. -- Alexander Pope
All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. [and therefore the solution is to fix the jaundiced eye.] -- Alexander Pope
For what I have publish'd, I can only hope to be pardon'd; but for what I have burned, I deserve to be prais'd. -- Alexander Pope
Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call -- Alexander Pope
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest. -- Alexander Pope
Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew:
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too. -- Alexander Pope
Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right. -- Alexander Pope
Where grows?
where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. -- Alexander Pope
Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child. -- Alexander Pope
And die of nothing but a rage to live -- Alexander Pope
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. -- Alexander Pope
In a sadly pleasing strain, let the warbling lute complain. -- Alexander Pope
There is nothing meritorious but virtue and friendship. -- Alexander Pope
Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole. -- Alexander Pope
The flower's are gone when the Fruits appear to ripen. -- Alexander Pope
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore. -- Alexander Pope
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants. -- Alexander Pope
O peace! how many wars were waged in thy name. -- Alexander Pope
Dogs, ye have had your day! -- Alexander Pope
Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill. -- Alexander Pope
Know thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man. -- Alexander Pope
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride. -- Alexander Pope
Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. -- Alexander Pope
Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. -- Alexander Pope
What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death. -- Alexander Pope
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. -- Alexander Pope
The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old. -- Alexander Pope
In vain sedate reflections we would make
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. -- Alexander Pope
And more than echoes talk along the walls. -- Alexander Pope
Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn. -- Alexander Pope
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. -- Alexander Pope
Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven. -- Alexander Pope
Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy. -- Alexander Pope
A field of glory is a field for all. -- Alexander Pope
Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd. -- Alexander Pope
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, of straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. -- Alexander Pope
Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. -- Alexander Pope
How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us? -- Alexander Pope
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. -- Alexander Pope
If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn? -- Alexander Pope
The laughers are a majority. -- Alexander Pope
Then sculpture and her sister arts revived; stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live. -- Alexander Pope
For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest. -- Alexander Pope
Good-nature and good-sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine. -- Alexander Pope
There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead. -- Alexander Pope
Good-humor only teaches charms to last,
Still makes new conquests and maintains the past. -- Alexander Pope
Drink is the feast of reason and the flow of soul. -- Alexander Pope
Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state. -- Alexander Pope
It is not so much the being exempt from faults, as having overcome them, that is an advantage to us. -- Alexander Pope
To dazzle let the vain design, To raise the thought and touch the heart, be thine! -- Alexander Pope
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. -- Alexander Pope
Who pants for glory, finds but short repose; A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows. -- Alexander Pope
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, who never mentions hell to ears polite. -- Alexander Pope
Fools admire, but men of sense approve. -- Alexander Pope
Interspersed in lawn and opening glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each others' shades. -- Alexander Pope
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue -- Alexander Pope
Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer once we know them. -- Alexander Pope
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile. -- Alexander Pope
Two purposes in human nature rule. Self- love to urge, and reason to restrain. -- Alexander Pope
I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian. -- Alexander Pope
You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live. -- Alexander Pope
The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. -- Alexander Pope
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed, We hang one jingling padlock on the mind. -- Alexander Pope
Who sees pale Mammom pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor. -- Alexander Pope
Superstition is the spleen of the soul. -- Alexander Pope
Where's the man who counsel can bestow, still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know. -- Alexander Pope
The life of a wit is a warfare upon earth. -- Alexander Pope
Astrologers that future fates foreshow. -- Alexander Pope
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so. -- Alexander Pope
A youth of frolic, an old age of cards. -- Alexander Pope
Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last. -- Alexander Pope
Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds. -- Alexander Pope
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me. -- Alexander Pope