Alexander Pope Quotes
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.
To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise!
The approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd ev'ry shade.
The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife, / To help me through this long disease, my life.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, and fills up all the mighty void of sense.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.
But touch me, and no minister so sore. Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burthen of some merry song.
The hog that ploughs not, not obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.
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.
Music the fiercest grief can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above.
What riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. What more? Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little?
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, of straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.
Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, their beauty withered, and their verdure lost!
Silence! coeval with eternity! thou wert ere Nature's self began to be; thine was the sway ere heaven was formed on earth, ere fruitful thought conceived creation's birth.
Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind.
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state.
Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies From head to ears, and now from ears to eyes.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find two of a face as soon as of a mind.
At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air.
All Nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good.
The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
