Alexander Pope Quotes

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,What mighty contests rise from trivial things,...

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

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.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Order is heaven's first law.

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.

To err is human to forgive divine.

The ruling passion be it what it will The ruling passion conquers reason still.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie for an excuse is a lie guarded.

A little learning is a dangerous thing.Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,and drinking largely sobers us again.

Light quirks of music broken and uneven make the soul dance upon a jig of heaven.

The world forgetting by the world forgot.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,To raise the genius, and to mend the heart

Thus education forms the common mind Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

When two people compliment each other with the choice of anything each of them generally gets that which he likes least.

All this dread order break- for whom? for thee?Vile worm!- oh madness! pride! impiety!

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, they rise, they break, and to that sea return.

We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives the

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little or too much;Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

A perfect judge will read each word of wit with the same spirit that its author writ.

The learned is happy nature to explore the fool is happy that he knows no more.

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

One truth is clear Whatever is is right.

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.

For he lives twice who can at once employ,The present well, and e’en the past enjoy.

Hunger is insolent and will be fed.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

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.

He mounts the storm and walks upon the wind.

Alive ridiculous and dead forgot?

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

Then marble soften'd into life grew warm.

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

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.

All other goods by fortune's hand are given: A wife is the peculiar gift of Heav'n.

Blessed be he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer Being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall.

We think our fathers fools so wise we grow Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so.

If I am right, Thy grace impartStill in the right to stay;If I am wrong, O, teach my heartTo find that better way!

To err is human, to forgive, divine.

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.

To err is human to forgive divine.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

For I who hold sage Homer's rule the best Welcome the coming speed the going guest.

Light quirks of music broken and uneven Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.

Get place and wealth if possible with grace If not by any means get wealth and place.

The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

How shall I love the sin yet keep the sense And love the offender yet detest the offence?

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stoneTell where I lie.

Get place and wealth if possible with grace If not by any means get wealth and place.