Alexander Pope Quotes - Page 2

A perfect judge will read each word of wit with the same spirit that its author writ.
Alexander Pope
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
Alexander Pope
The vanity of human life is like a river constantly passing away and yet constantly coming on.
Alexander Pope
A little learning is a dangerous thing Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain And drinking largely sobers us again.
Alexander Pope
The learned is happy nature to explore the fool is happy that he knows no more.
Alexander Pope
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Alexander Pope
Alive ridiculous and dead forgot?
Alexander Pope
Thou wert my guide philosopher and friend.
Alexander Pope
Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
Alexander Pope
For I who hold sage Homer's rule the best Welcome the coming speed the going guest.
Alexander Pope
Hope springs eternal in the human breast Man never is but always to be blest.
Alexander Pope
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Alexander Pope
Know then thyself presume not God to scan: The proper study of mankind is man.
Alexander Pope
I have as little fear that God will damn a man that has charity as I hope that the priests can save one who has not.
Alexander Pope
In faith and hope the world will disagree but all mankind's concern is charity.
Alexander Pope
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
Alexander Pope
False happiness is like false money it passes for a long 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
And all who told it added something new And all who heard it made enlargements too.
Alexander Pope
He mounts the storm and walks upon the wind.
Alexander Pope
There is nothing meritorious but virtue and friendship.
Alexander Pope
To err is human to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope
How shall I love the sin yet keep the sense And love the offender yet detest the offence?
Alexander Pope
The world forgetting by the world forgot.
Alexander Pope
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Alexander Pope
Be not the first by whom the new are tried Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Alexander Pope
To err is human to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie for an excuse is a lie guarded.
Alexander Pope
Thus education forms the common mind Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
Alexander Pope
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feat of reason and the flow of soul.
Alexander Pope
Men would be angels Angels would be gods.
Alexander Pope
Till tired he sleeps and life's poor play is o'er.
Alexander Pope
All are but parts of one stupendous whole Whose body Nature is and God the soul.
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
I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.
Alexander Pope
For fools admire but men of sense approve.
Alexander Pope
Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain
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
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things,...
Alexander Pope
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Alexander Pope
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, they rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Alexander Pope
The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.
Alexander Pope
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Alexander Pope
Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
Alexander Pope
Most critics, fond of subservient artstill make the whole depend upon a part.They talk of principles, but notions prizeAnd all to one loved folly sacrifice.
Alexander Pope
For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends
Alexander Pope
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope
Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are madeTaller or stronger than the weeds they shade?Or ask of yonder argent fields above,Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?
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
Let Sporus tremble — "What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?"Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings; Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys,Yet Wit ne'er tastes, and Beauty ne'er enjoys,
Alexander Pope
Make use of every friend— and every foe.
Alexander Pope
Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.
Alexander Pope
There is no study that is not capable of delighting us, after a little application to it.
Alexander Pope
Ye sacred nine
Alexander Pope
All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety!
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
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Alexander Pope
We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives the
Alexander Pope
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Alexander Pope
Nature to all things fixed the limits fitAnd wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.As on the land while here the ocean gains.In other parts it leaves wide sandy plainsThus in the soul while memory prevails,The solid power of understanding failsWhere beams of warm imagination play,The memory's soft figures melt awayOne science only will one genius fit,So vast is art, so narrow human witNot only bounded to peculiar arts,But oft in those confined to single partsLike kings, we lose the conquests gained before,By vain ambition still to make them moreEach might his several province well command,Would all but stoop to what they understand.
Alexander Pope