Alexander Pope

If I am right, Thy grace import To find that better way!

— Alexander Pope

Teach me to feel another's woe, That mercy show to me.

— Alexander Pope

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

— Alexander Pope

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

— Alexander Pope

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.

— Alexander Pope

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,

— Alexander Pope

Health consists with temperance alone.

— Alexander Pope

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

— Alexander Pope

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

— Alexander Pope

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

— Alexander Pope

Remembrance and reflection how allied!

— Alexander Pope

Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

— Alexander Pope

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

— Alexander Pope

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

— Alexander Pope

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

— Alexander Pope

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.

— Alexander Pope

Health consists with temperance alone.

— Alexander Pope

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

— Alexander Pope

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

— Alexander Pope

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

— Alexander Pope

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

— Alexander Pope

The most positive men are the most credulous.

— Alexander Pope

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

— Alexander Pope

For he lives twice who can at once employ,

— Alexander Pope

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

— Alexander Pope

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;

— Alexander Pope

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

— Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

— Alexander Pope

If I am right, Thy grace impart

— Alexander Pope

Happy the man whose wish and care In his own ground.

— Alexander Pope

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Tell where I lie.

— Alexander Pope

They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.

— Alexander Pope

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.

— Alexander Pope

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

— Alexander Pope

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

— Alexander Pope

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

— Alexander Pope

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.

— Alexander Pope

I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

— Alexander Pope

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

— Alexander Pope

How vast a memory has Love!

— Alexander Pope

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

The stoic husband was the glorious thing.And lov'd his country.

— Alexander Pope

Well, if our author in the wife offendsAnd sure such kind good creatures may be living.

— Alexander Pope

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!

— Alexander Pope

Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Ye harlots, sleep at ease!

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

Each finding like a friendSomething to blame, and something to commend.

— Alexander Pope

Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died.

— Alexander Pope

Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.

— Alexander Pope

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

— Alexander Pope

"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.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

— Alexander Pope

Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

— Alexander Pope

So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

— 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

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child.

— Alexander Pope

For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.

— Alexander Pope

There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell: 'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.

— Alexander Pope

Let such, such only tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor.

— Alexander Pope

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and are dead.

— Alexander Pope

Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.

— Alexander Pope

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

— Alexander Pope

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

— Alexander Pope

Say, is not absence death to those who love?

— Alexander Pope

Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.

— Alexander Pope

The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.

— Alexander Pope

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

— Alexander Pope

'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

— Alexander Pope

To err is human, to forgive divine.

— Alexander Pope

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.

— Alexander Pope

There various news I heard of love and strife,All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.

— Alexander Pope

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

— Alexander Pope

The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.

— Alexander Pope

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.

— Alexander Pope

Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

— Alexander Pope

The world recedes; it disappears! O death! where is thy sting?

— Alexander Pope

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

— Alexander Pope

Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.

— Alexander Pope

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

— Alexander Pope

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.

— Alexander Pope

The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,

— Alexander Pope

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?

— Alexander Pope

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.

— Alexander Pope

Ignobly vain, and impotently great.

— Alexander Pope

What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things!

— Alexander Pope

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.

— Alexander Pope

They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.

— Alexander Pope

This casket India's glowing gems unlocks And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.

— Alexander Pope

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.

— Alexander Pope

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

— Alexander Pope

If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all.

— Alexander Pope

Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

— Alexander Pope

Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.

— Alexander Pope

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,

— Alexander Pope

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade.

— Alexander Pope

Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea.

— Alexander Pope

At every word a reputation dies.

— Alexander Pope

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

— Alexander Pope

Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.

— Alexander Pope

Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

— Alexander Pope

But when mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill!

— Alexander Pope

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

— Alexander Pope

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their last.

— Alexander Pope

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.

— Alexander Pope

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

— Alexander Pope

Boast not my fall (he cried), insulting foe! And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

— Alexander Pope

Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

— Alexander Pope

Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.

— Alexander Pope

On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.

— Alexander Pope

Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, For others' good, or melt at others' woe.

— Alexander Pope

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.

— Alexander Pope

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

— Alexander Pope

How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

— Alexander Pope

To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.

— Alexander Pope

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

— Alexander Pope

Some who grow dull religious straight commence

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

— Alexander Pope

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

— Alexander Pope

For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

— 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 labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.

— Alexander Pope

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.

— Alexander Pope

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,

— Alexander Pope

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

— Alexander Pope

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd

— Alexander Pope

The most positive men are the most credulous…

— Alexander Pope

To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.

— Alexander Pope

Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

— Alexander Pope

Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

— Alexander Pope

Father of all! in every age, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

— Alexander Pope

Thou Great First Cause, least understood And that myself am blind.

— Alexander Pope

And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.

— Alexander Pope

Let not this weak, unknowing hand On each I judge Thy foe.

— Alexander Pope