Quotes by Alexander Pope

A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest.

Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Coffee, (which makes the politician wise, And see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes).

Honor and shame from no condition rise; act well your part, there all the honor lies.

The learned is happy, nature to explore, the fool Is happy, that he knows no more.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

At every word a reputation dies.

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.

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.

In cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense.

A small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The circle mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads.

Taste is a rare to be found as a true genius. That most men are born with some taste.

O happiness! Our being's end and aim! For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

You think this cruel? take it for a rule, No creature smarts so little as a fool.

Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right.

Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And when in act they cease, in prospect rise.

Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.

Physicians are in general the most amiable companions and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.

There is no study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it.

Sure of their qualities and demanding praise, more go to ruined fortunes than are raised.

Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?

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.

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

When two people compliment each other with the choice of anything, each of them generally gets that which he likes least.

Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.

In search of wit these lose their common sense.

Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well.

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

Fame can never make us lie down contentedly on a deathbed.

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.

Nor in the critic let the man be lost.

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

I find myself 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.

This long disease, my life.

The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.

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.

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.

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.

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.

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.

It is sure the hardest science to forget!

Some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools.

Half-learn'd witlings.

And write about it, Goddess, and about it!

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.

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.

Nothing is more certain than much of the force; as well as grace, of arguments or instructions depends their conciseness.

Know thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.

Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him.

Most critics, fond of subservient art
still make the whole depend upon a part.
They talk of principles, but notions prize
And all to one loved folly sacrifice.

He knows to live who keeps the middle state, and neither leans on this side nor on that.

Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky.

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.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.

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

Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

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

Where grows? -- where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.

As with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart.

Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best.

To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise!

Fondly we think we honor merit then, when we but praise ourselves in other men.

Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies.

With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought.

Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, Stays till we call, and then not often near.

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.

Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.

Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

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?

Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

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.

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find two of a face as soon as of a mind.

I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

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.

The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential Awe,
At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry-'
'Nothing is sacred now but Villainy'
- Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I.

The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

No craving void left aching in the soul.

We may see the small value God has for riches, by the people he gives them to.

The life of a wit is a warfare upon earth.

For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.

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!

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.

I have more zeal than wit.

Wretches hang that jurymen may dine.