Who is Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope is generally regarded as the greatest English poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in the English language, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope was a master of the heroic couplet.
Alexander Pope Quotes
1. No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
2. ‘Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
3. A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.
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4. Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
5. Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.
6. A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
7. But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?
8. And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but the truth in a masquerade.
9. The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
10. The most positive men are the most credulous.
11. How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!.
12. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
13. The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.
14. What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.
15. To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th’ observer’s sake.
16. Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
17. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.
18. A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.
19. Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.
20. Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.
21. Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.
22. Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
23. Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
24. True politeness consists in being easy one’s self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
25. Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.
26. Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!
27. Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.
28. Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
29. Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
30. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
31. Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
32. How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
33. Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.
34. Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
35. Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.
36. Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.
38. And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.
39. Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
40. For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.
41. Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
42. Order is heaven’s first law.
43. Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
44. A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
45. Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.
46. Passions are the gales of life.
47. Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.
48. The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
49. Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
50. Wit is the lowest form of humor.
51. Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.
52. Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.
53. Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.
54. Health consists with temperance alone.
55. On wrongs swift vengeance waits.
56. Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
57. One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
58. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.
59. Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.
60. If a man’s character is to be abused there’s nobody like a relative to do the business.
