“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.”
“Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Sappho to Phaon. Eloisa to Abelard. The temple of fame. January and May. The wife of Bath. The first book of Statius's Thebais. The fable of Dryope. Vertumnus and Pomona. Imitations [of English poets] Miscellanies. Epitaphs
“You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there's no body at home.”
“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.”
Source: The Poems
“When to the Permanent is sacrificed the Mutable, the prize is thine: the drop returneth whence it came. The Open Path leads to the changeless change - Non-Being, the glorious state of Absoluteness, the Bliss past human thought.”
“How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail!”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope
“The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., in Verse and Prose: With a Selection of Explanatory Notes
“Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.”
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 by William Roscoe, Esq
“Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope
“With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought.”
Source: The poems of 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.”
“Our business in the field of fight, Is not to question, but to prove our might.”
Source: The Iliad of Homer: Translated by Alexander Pope, Esq. A new edition, with additional notes, critical and illustrative, by Gilbert Wakefield, B.A. ...
“Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (including His Translation of Homer). To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, by Dr. Johnson
“These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Alexander Pope (Illustrated)
“The lot of man - to suffer and to die.”
Source: The odyssey
“Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best.”
Source: The Iliad of Homer: Translated by Alexander Pope, Esq. A new edition, with additional notes, critical and illustrative, by Gilbert Wakefield, B.A. ...
“Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!”
Source: Poetical works
“To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence.”
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 by William Roscoe, Esq
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
“No Senses stronger than his brain can bear. Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly: What the advantage, if his finer eyes Study a Mite, not comprehend the Skies?... Or quick Effluvia darting thro' his brain, Die of a Rose, in Aromatic pain? If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres... Who finds not Providence all-good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies?”
“On cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.”
Source: The Dunciad: With Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus
“We may see the small value God has for riches, by the people he gives them to.”
Source: The works of Alexander Pope. With a selection of explanatory notes, and the account of his life by dr. Johnson
“[T]hroÂ’ this Air, this Ocean, and this Earth, All Nature quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high progressive life may go? Around how wide? how deep extend below? Vast Chain of Being! which from God began, Ethereal Essence, Spirit, Substance, Man, Beast, Bird, Fish, Insect! what no Eye can see, No Glass can reach! from Infinite to Thee! From Thee to Nothing.... From NatureÂ’s Chain whatever Link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.... All are but parts of one stupendous Whole: Whose Body Nature is, and God the Soul.”
“That, chang'd thro' all and yet in all the same, Great in the Earth as in th' Ætherial frame, Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the Breeze, Glows in the Stars, and blossoms in the Trees... Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part... Submit - in this, or any other Sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear. All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see; All Discord, Harmony not understood... All partial Evil, universal Good.”
“Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.”
Source: Poetical Works, to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author
“In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?”
Source: An essay on man: in four epistles to H. St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
“I as little fear that God will damn a man that has charity, as I hope that the priests can save one who has not.”
“Most authors steal their works, or buy.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope; with a Memoir of the Author, Notes, and Critical Notices on Each Poem. By the Rev. George Croly ... New Edition. [With a Portrait.]
“True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.”
“I was not born for courts and great affairs, but I pay my debts, believe and say my prayers.”
“There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, ''Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope
“Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
“To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.”
“I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.”
“Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.”
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 by William Roscoe, Esq
“Get your enemy to read your works in order to mend them, for your friend is so much your second self that he will judge too like you.”
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
“A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton
“Whoe'er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally.”
Source: Poetical works
“A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.”
Source: The works
“The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?”
Source: A collection of essays, episodes and odes
“That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.”
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
“The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.”
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
“All other goods by fortune's hand are given,
A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven.”
“Truth shines the brighter, clad in verse.”
Source: Miscellanies. In Four Volumes
“Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires.”
“Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.”
Source: The works of Alexander Pope, with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author [&c.] by W. Roscoe
“Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity.”
Source: Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose
“Love the offender, yet detest the offense.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: To which is Prefixed a Life of the Author
“Who are next to knaves? Those that converse with them.”
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
“Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer once we know them.”
Source: Poetry and letters-1807
