Alexander Pope

Quotes

An honest man is the noblest work of God.
And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.
What will a child learn sooner than a song?
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
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.
Man: the glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring
The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is that it gives me the greater freedom of playing the fool.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.
Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
It is with our judgments as with our watches; no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
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!
The general cry is against ingratitude, but the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity; none but direct villains are capable of willful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he hath done more that another deserves, while the other thinks he hath received less than he deserves.
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night. God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die; steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
Such laboured' nothings in so strange a style
amaze the un-learned and make the learned smile.
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,
But, like the shadow, proves the substance true.
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
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.
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call;
She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all.
How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
To err is human; to forgive is divine.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is by saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
To err is human, to forgive, divine.