Alexander Pope Quotes

The most positive men are the most credulous.

Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.

Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.

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

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

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.

Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed, We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow, proves the substance true.

Pleas'd look forward, pleas'd to look behind,And count each birthday with a grateful mind.

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

Order is Heaven's first law; and this confess, Some are and must be greater than the rest.

As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

Every professional was once an amateur.

Be silent always when you doubt your sense.

Sleep and death, two twins of winged race, Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace.

Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn.

It is very natural for a young friend and a young lover to think the persons they love have nothing to do but to please them.

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit, There is no cure 'gainst age but it

You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

For forms of government, let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered, is best.

A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough; a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.

This long disease, my life.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

There is a majesty in simplicity.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?

And more than echoes talk along the walls.

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

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

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

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

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

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

That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.

Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven.

Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?

Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.

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

Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

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

With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.

I begin where most people end, with a full conviction of the emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory nature of all human pleasures.

Drink is the feast of reason and the flow of soul.

Those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.