Alexander Pope Quotes

552 Sourced Quotes

Thus God and nature linked the gen'ral frame,
And bade self-love and social be the same.

Alexander Pope
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

Alexander Pope
Sir, I admit your gen'ral rule
That every poet is a fool:
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Alexander Pope
For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned.The berries crackle, and the mill turns round... At once they gratify their scent and taste.And frequent cups prolong the rich repast... Coffee (which makes the politician wise And see through all things with his half-shut eyes).

Alexander Pope
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Alexander Pope
In vain sedate reflections we would make
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.

Alexander Pope
The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more.

Alexander Pope
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Alexander Pope
Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.

Alexander Pope
Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.

Alexander Pope
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or (in the midwives' phrase) a quick conception, and an easy delivery.

Alexander Pope
Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.

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

Alexander Pope
But where's the man who counsel can bestow,
Still pleas'd to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Alexander Pope
Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide,
First strip off all her equipage of Pride,
Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress,
Or Learning's Luxury or idleness,
Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain
Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain.

Alexander Pope
The garlands fade, the vows are worn away;
So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.

Alexander Pope
To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.

Alexander Pope
The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd,
Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it, added something new,
And all who heard it, made Enlargements too,
In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.

Alexander Pope
If I am right, Thy grace import
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way!

Alexander Pope
Teach me to feel another's woe;
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Alexander Pope
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Alexander Pope
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Alexander Pope
But when mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!

Alexander Pope
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.

Alexander Pope
"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart.

Alexander Pope
At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense.

Alexander Pope
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.

Alexander Pope
Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Alexander Pope
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.

Alexander Pope
But still the great have kindness in reserve,
He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.
Of a noble patron

Alexander Pope