Alexander Pope Quotes

552 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.

Alexander Pope
By music minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
....
Warriors she fires with animated sounds.
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds.

Alexander Pope
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; 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: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Alexander Pope
Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.

Alexander Pope
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

Alexander Pope
See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.

Alexander Pope
Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.

Alexander Pope
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.

Alexander Pope
Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome. No single parts unequally surprise, All comes united to th' admiring eyes.

Alexander Pope
Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm. Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please;
Our joys below it can improve,
And antedate the bliss above.

Alexander Pope
The search of our future being is but a needless, anxious, and haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what, without all this solicitude, we shall know a little later.

Alexander Pope
A spring there is, whose silver waters show Clear as a glass the shining sands below: A flowering lotos spreads its arms above, Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove.

Alexander Pope
Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

Alexander Pope