Alexander Pope
poet, literary historian, translator, writer, philosopher, satirist
Read on Wikipedia1688 – 1744
All Quotes by Alexander Pope
“If I am right, Thy grace import To find that better way!”
“Teach me to feel another's woe, That mercy show to me.”
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;”
“One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
“Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.”
“To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,”
“Health consists with temperance alone.”
“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.”
“Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.”
“So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
“Remembrance and reflection how allied!”
“Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.”
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
“Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.”
“Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.”
“Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.”
“Health consists with temperance alone.”
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
“Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.”
“The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.”
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;”
“The most positive men are the most credulous.”
“So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
“For he lives twice who can at once employ,”
“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”
“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;”
“For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.”
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
“If I am right, Thy grace impart”
“Happy the man whose wish and care In his own ground.”
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Tell where I lie.”
“They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.”
“The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.”
“To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.”
“Wit is the lowest form of humor.”
“Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.”
“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.”
“I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.”
“How vast a memory has Love!”
“They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.”
“Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring victims, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there. It gives one the image of a giant's den in a romance, bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs.”
“I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your own, heartily wishing the good, that is the quiet of my country, and hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.”
“The stoic husband was the glorious thing.And lov'd his country.”
“Well, if our author in the wife offendsAnd sure such kind good creatures may be living.”
“Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!”
“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”
“I think it was a generous thought, and one that fow'd from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world.”
“Each finding like a friendSomething to blame, and something to commend.”
“Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died.”
“Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.”
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
“"Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth Beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth.”
“Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long Absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: Absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;”
“Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.”
“So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.”
“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.”
“Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child.”
“For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.”
“There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell: 'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.”
“Let such, such only tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor.”
“Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and are dead.”
“Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.”
“Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.”
“Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.”
“Say, is not absence death to those who love?”
“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”
“The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.”
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
“'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.”
“To err is human, to forgive divine.”
“What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.”
“There various news I heard of love and strife,All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.”
“For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.”
“The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.”
“Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.”
“Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!”
“The world recedes; it disappears! O death! where is thy sting?”
“Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, And where, though all things differ, all agree.”
“Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.”
“Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, They fall, and leave their little lives in air.”
“To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.”
“The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,”
“A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?”
“What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.”
“Ignobly vain, and impotently great.”
“What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things!”
“Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.”
“They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.”
“This casket India's glowing gems unlocks And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.”
“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.”
“Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.”
“If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.”
“Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.”
“Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.”
“Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,”
“Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade.”
“Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea.”
“At every word a reputation dies.”
“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.”
“Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.”
“Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.”
“But when mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill!”
“The meeting points the sacred hair dissever And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.”
“Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their last.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.”
“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
“Boast not my fall (he cried), insulting foe! And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive.”
“I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken.”
“Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be Scholars, and yet be angry to find us so.”
“I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”
“What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?”
“Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? For those who greatly think, or bravely die?”
“Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.”
“On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.”
“Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, For others' good, or melt at others' woe.”
“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
“How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!”
“To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.”
“I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.”
“Some who grow dull religious straight commence”
“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”
“It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.”
“Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.”
“When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.”
“For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”
“A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.”
“He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.”
“Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.”
“Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.”
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,”
“Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.”
“True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd”
“The most positive men are the most credulous…”
“To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.”
“Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.”
“Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.”
“Father of all! in every age, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!”
“Thou Great First Cause, least understood And that myself am blind.”
“And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.”
“Let not this weak, unknowing hand On each I judge Thy foe.”