Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including An Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock (1712–1717), The Dunciad (1728–1743), and for his translations of Homer.

Quotes

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.

Miscellaneous
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.

Friendship
To err is human; to forgive is divine.

Miscellaneous