Alexander Pope Quotes

Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or a quick conception and an easy delivery.

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

Art still followed where Rome's eagles flew.

Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.

To teach vain Wits that Science little known, T' admire Superior Sense, and doubt their own!

But if you'll prosper, mark what I advise, Whom age, and long experience render wise.

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?

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake.

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

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?

Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

Cavil you may, but never criticise.

Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best.

These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!

Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.

Virtue alone is happiness below.

"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.

Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.

No, make me mistress to the man I love; If there be yet another name more free More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!

The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there's no body at home.

All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. [and therefore the solution is to fix the jaundiced eye.]

Whatever is, is right.

Truth shines the brighter, clad in verse.

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.

The season when to come, and when to go, to sing, or cease to sing, we never know.

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment, too?

The world is a thing we must of necessity either laugh at or be angry at; if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; if we are angry at it, they say we are ill-natured.

Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heaven.

A mighty maze! But not without a plan.

Ah! why, ye Gods, should two and two make four?

Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail. Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.

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

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.

For thee I dim these eye and stuff this head With all such reading as was never read.

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

Consult the Genius of the Place in all.

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.

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.

The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.

The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?

How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.

The lot of man - to suffer and to die.

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.

Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.

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

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.