Alexander Pope Quotes

552 Sourced Quotes

Where beams of imagination play,
the memory's soft figures melt away...

Alexander Pope
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same belov'd, contented thing.

Alexander Pope
To dazzle let the vain design, To raise the thought and touch the heart, be thine!

Alexander Pope
Live like yourself, was soon my lady's word, And lo! two puddings smok'd upon the board.

Alexander Pope
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.

Alexander Pope
To buy books as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor.

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

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

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

Alexander Pope
From the moment one sets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully, "as a king's favorite or a king.

Alexander Pope
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize.

Alexander Pope
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.

Alexander Pope
Trade it may help, society extend,
But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend:
It raises armies in a nation's aid,
But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.

Alexander Pope
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water.

Alexander Pope
What so pure, which envious tongues will spare?
Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair,
With matchless impudence they style a wife,
The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life;
A bosom serpent, a domestic evil,
A night invasion, and a mid-day devil;
Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard,
But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard.

Alexander Pope
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.

Alexander Pope
The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.

Alexander Pope
We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the misfortunes of the mind than for those of the body, when they are such as he cannot help; were this thoroughly considered we should no more laugh at a man for having his brains cracked than for having his head broke.

Alexander Pope
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.

Alexander Pope
To balance Fortune by a just expense, Join with Economy, Magnificence.

Alexander Pope
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n influence scarce can penetrate.
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.

Alexander Pope
There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, ''Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.

Alexander Pope
The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain.

Alexander Pope
Heaven breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul.

Alexander Pope
Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.

Alexander Pope
Not half so swift the trembling doves can fly, When the fierce eagle cleaves the liquid sky; Not half so swiftly the fierce eagle moves, When thro' the clouds he drives the trembling doves.

Alexander Pope
Heaven gave to woman the peculiar grace
To spin, to weep, and cully human race.

Alexander Pope
Horses (thou say'st) and asses men may try,
And ring suspected vessels ere they buy;
But wives, a random choice, untried they take;
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake;
Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away,
And all the woman glares in open day.

Alexander Pope
If it be the chief point of friendship to
comply with a friends motions and inclinations,
he possesses this in a eminent degree;
he lies down when I sit, and walks when I walk,
which is more than many good friends
can pretend to do.

Alexander Pope
For what I have publish'd, I can only hope to be pardon'd; but for what I have burned, I deserve to be prais'd.

Alexander Pope