“No, make me mistress to the man I love; If there be yet another name more free More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!”
“Is not absence death to those who love?”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Memoirs of the life and writings of Pope. Recommendatory poems. A discourse on pastoral poetry. Pastorals. Messiah. Windsor forest. Odes. Two chorus's to the tragedy of Brutus. The dying Christian to his soul. An essay on criticism. The rape of the lock. Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady. Prologue to Mr. Addison's tragedy of Cato. Epilogue to Mr. Rowe's Jane Shore
“'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope Esq
“She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.”
Source: The Poetical Works of A. Pope: Including His Translation of Homer , to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author
“Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be Blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rest and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n.”
“Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.”
“Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.”
“Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward
“The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.”
Source: The Works: Including Several Hundred Unpublished Letters, and Other New Materials
“Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope
“Tis true, 'tis certain; man, though dead, retains Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.”
“All chance, direction, which thou canst not see”
“The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them”
“All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye.”
“All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. [and therefore the solution is to fix the jaundiced eye.]”
“All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye that habitually compares everything to something better. But by changing that habit to comparing everything to something worse, even making it a game, that person can find gratitude, relief and happiness where-ever they go and whatever they experience, guaranteed!”
“Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: In Six Volumes Complete. With His Last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements; Together with All His Notes, as They Were Delivered to the Editor a Little Before His Death: Printed Verbatim from the Octavo Edition of Mr. Warburton
“When we are young, we are slavishly employed in procuring something whereby we may live comfortably when we grow old; and when we are old, we perceive it is too late to live as we proposed.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: With Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks,
“Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.”
“Beauty draws us with a single hair.”
“Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq. with Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks
“Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue”
Source: Essay on Man and Other Poems
“Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call.”
“The season when to come, and when to go, to sing, or cease to sing, we never know.”
Source: The Poetical Works of A. Pope, Esq: With an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author
“And write about it, Goddess, and about it!”
“What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!”
“An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.”
Source: Poetry and letters-1807
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”
Source: The Major Works
“There is a majesty in simplicity.”
“Truth needs not flowers of speech.”
“Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave.”
Source: An essay on man: By Alexander Pope, Esq. Enlarged and improved by the author. Together with his MS. additions and variations as in the last edition of his works. With the notes of William, Lord Bishop of Gloucester
“By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: With a Sketch of the Author's Life
“Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq. with Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks
“Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.”
“A perfect woman's but a softer man.”
“The dances ended, all the fairy train For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward
“A mighty maze! But not without a plan.”
“The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.”
Source: A Supplementary Volume to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Containing Pieces of Poetry, Not Inserted in Warburton's and Warton's Editions : and a Collection of Letters, Now First Published
“Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: With Notes and Illustrations
“The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.”
Source: The Iliad of Homer
“Great oaks grow from little acorns. He has a green thumb. He has green fingers. He's sowing his wild oats. Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand.”
“Where beams of imagination play, the memory's soft figures melt away.”
“Search then the ruling passion: This clue, once found, unravels all the rest.”
“Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.”
“As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.”
“A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.”
Source: The Correspondence
“Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.”
