Alexander Pope Quotes

A youth of frolic, an old age of cards.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

A mighty maze! But not without a plan.

The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

The villain's censure is extorted praise.

Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.

It is sure the hardest science to forget!

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

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.

From the moment one sets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully, "as a king's favorite or a king.

Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labor when the end was rest, Indulged the day that housed their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.

Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.

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

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

What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

Two purposes in human nature rule. Self- love to urge, and reason to restrain.

If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.

All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers; hushed are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers.

Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature.

For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight; his can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.

Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n.

Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross?

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.

There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship.

What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or lap-dogs breathe their last.

Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.

Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him.

For what I have publish'd, I can only hope to be pardon'd; but for what I have burned, I deserve to be prais'd.

Art still followed where Rome's eagles flew.

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.

Do you find yourself making excuses when you do not perform? Shed the excuses and face reality. Excuses are the loser's way out. They will mar your credibility and stunt your personal growth.

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

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all .

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

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

And empty heads console with empty sound.

Beauty draws us with a single hair.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.