Alexander Pope Quotes

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There are certain times when most people are in a disposition of being informed, and 'tis incredible what a vast good a little truth might do, spoken in such seasons.

Alexander Pope
But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.

Alexander Pope
Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies.

Alexander Pope
But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate.

Alexander Pope
Never elated while one man's oppress'd;
Never dejected while another's blessed.

Alexander Pope
That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.

Alexander Pope
Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Alexander Pope
He knows to live who keeps the middle state, and neither leans on this side nor on that.

Alexander Pope
In various talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies.

Alexander Pope
Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.

Alexander Pope
Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds.

Alexander Pope
Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out Order, and extinguish Light.

Alexander Pope
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

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
For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.

Alexander Pope
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

Alexander Pope
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

Alexander Pope
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives, some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.

Alexander Pope
Some have at first for wits, then poets passed,
Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.

Alexander Pope
The wrath of Peleus' son, the direful spring Of all the Grecian woes, O goddess sing!

Alexander Pope
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:
Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage.

Alexander Pope
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn.

Alexander Pope
For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

Alexander Pope
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Alexander Pope
Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.

Alexander Pope
All seems infected that th'infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

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
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us, since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

Alexander Pope