Alexander Pope Quotes

552 Sourced Quotes

And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.

Alexander Pope
Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics.

Alexander Pope
Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid.

Alexander Pope
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven.

Alexander Pope
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

Alexander Pope
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose.

Alexander Pope
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?

Alexander Pope
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain. The wond'ring forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call. And headlong streams hand listening in their fall!

Alexander Pope
That each from other differs, first confess; next that he varies from himself no less.

Alexander Pope
Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven.

Alexander Pope
Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.

Alexander Pope
But see, Orion sheds unwholesome dews; Arise, the pines a noxious shade diffuse; Sharp Boreas blows, and nature feels decay, Time conquers all, and we must time obey.

Alexander Pope
The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.

Alexander Pope
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.

Alexander Pope
Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd.

Alexander Pope
Our plenteous streams a various race supply, The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye, The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd, The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold, Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains.

Alexander Pope
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

Alexander Pope
The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.

Alexander Pope
Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.

Alexander Pope
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day.

Alexander Pope
While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.

Alexander Pope
The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?

Alexander Pope
A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.

Alexander Pope
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.

Alexander Pope
The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old.

Alexander Pope
To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise!

Alexander Pope
The hog that ploughs not, not obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Alexander Pope
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd Make and maintain the balance of the mind.

Alexander Pope
In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.

Alexander Pope
For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

Alexander Pope