Alexander Pope Quotes

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Music resembles poetry, in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

If I am right, Thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O, teach my heart
To find that better way!

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please,
With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought:
You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live.

A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
As shades more sweetly recommend the light,
So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential Awe,
At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry-`
'Nothing is sacred now but Villainy'

- Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I

Remembrance and reflection how allied!
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!

Some who grow dull religious straight commence
And gain in morals what they lose in sense.

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God afraid of me.

Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole.