Quotes About Alexander Pope

#1. 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. - ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man

Thomas H. Cook

#2. Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, tuned the English tongue.

Harold Bloom

#3. For God's sake, madam, when you write to me, talk of yourself; there is nothing I so much desire to hear of; talk a great deal of yourself, that she who I always thought talked best may speak upon the best subject.
Alexander Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Michael Kelahan

#4. I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.

James Joyce

#5. (Alexander Pope: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.")

Paul Kalanithi

#6. is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed' was the ninth beatitude." Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet

Robert Courtade

#7. To err is human; to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope"
Excerpt From: Moriarty, Liane. "The Husband's Secret.

Alexander Pope

#8. The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope.
The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.

Maureen Johnson

#9. All gardening is landscape painting,' said Alexander Pope.

Rebecca Solnit

#10. We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

Willard Van Orman Quine

#11. A pear-tree planted nigh:
'Twas charg'd with fruit that made a goodly show,
And hung with dangling pears was every bough.

Alexander Pope

#12. That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood.

Alexander Pope

#13. Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe.

Alexander Pope

#14. Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have.

Alexander Pope

#15. As some to church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there.

Alexander Pope

#16. Consult the genius of the place, that paints as you plant, and as you work.

Alexander Pope

#17. No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.

Alexander Pope

#18. Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or a quick conception and an easy delivery.

Alexander Pope

#19. Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile

Alexander Pope

#20. While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.

Alexander Pope

#21. Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate and rot.

Alexander Pope

#22. Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And when in act they cease, in prospect rise.

Alexander Pope

#23. Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think or bravely die?

Alexander Pope

#24. I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

Alexander Pope

#25. A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach.

Alexander Pope

#26. Rogues in rags are kept in countenance by rogues in ruffles.

Alexander Pope

#27. The difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolor'd through out passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.

Alexander Pope

#28. Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes, tenets with books, and principles with times.

Alexander Pope

#29. Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide,
First strip off all her equipage of Pride,
Deduct what is but Vanity or Dress,
Or Learning's Luxury or idleness,
Or tricks, to show the stretch of the human brain
Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain.

Alexander Pope

#30. Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.

Alexander Pope

#31. Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old.

Alexander Pope

#32. 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

#33. Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

Alexander Pope

#34. See the wild Waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!

Alexander Pope

#35. Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

Alexander Pope

#36. A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state.

Alexander Pope

#37. Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.

Alexander Pope

#38. For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

Alexander Pope

#39. Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Alexander Pope

#40. Pleas'd look forward, pleas'd to look behind,And count each birthday with a grateful mind.

Alexander Pope

#41. A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

Alexander Pope

#42. Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.

Alexander Pope

#43. Honour forbid! at whose unrivall'd shrine 105 Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign. Methinks already I your tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say, Already see you a degraded toast, And all your honour in a whisper lost! 110 How shall I, then, your helpless fame

Alexander Pope

#44. What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things, ...

Alexander Pope

#45. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.

Alexander Pope

#46. Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Alexander Pope

#47. Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

Alexander Pope

#48. Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.

Alexander Pope

#49. Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll'd, And vanquished realms supply recording gold?

Alexander Pope

#50. Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes: the glorious fault of angels and of gods.

Alexander Pope

#51. On wings of wind came flying all abroad.

Alexander Pope

#52. There is a majesty in simplicity.

Alexander Pope

#53. Modest plainness sets off sprightly wit,
For works may have more with than does 'em good,
As bodies perish through excess of blood.

Alexander Pope

#54. Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.

Alexander Pope

#55. True self-love and social are the same.

Alexander Pope

#56. Be sure yourself and your own reach to know How far your genius taste and learning go.

Alexander Pope

#57. Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

Alexander Pope

#58. In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.

Alexander Pope

#59. Though triumphs were to generals only due, crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

Alexander Pope

#60. Sure flattery never traveled so far as three thousand miles; it is now only for truth, which over takes all things, to reach you at this distance.

Alexander Pope

#61. Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbor with himself.

Alexander Pope

#62. Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.

Alexander Pope

#63. In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.

Alexander Pope

#64. There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent; for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead.

Alexander Pope

#65. Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best.

Alexander Pope

#66. Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!

Alexander Pope

#67. Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
But Health consists with Temperance alone,
And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own.

Alexander Pope

#68. Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.

Alexander Pope

#69. Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.

Alexander Pope

#70. And make each day a critic on the last.

Alexander Pope

#71. He never hears the truth about himself by not wishing to hear it. Pope Alexander

Barbara W. Tuchman

#72. Celia
Celia, we know, is sixty-five,
Yet Celia's face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,
While summer in her face is seen.
How cruel Celia's fate, who hence
Our heart's devotion cannot try;
Too pretty for our reverence,
Too ancient for our gallantry!

Alexander Pope

#73. First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.

Alexander Pope

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

Alexander Pope

#75. The doubtful beam long nods from side to side.

Alexander Pope

#76. Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed, We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.

Alexander Pope

#77. Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Alexander Pope

#78. From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

Alexander Pope

#79. But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.

Alexander Pope

#80. Who dare to love their country, and be poor.

Alexander Pope

#81. Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best.

Alexander Pope

#82. How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns; Contented breathes his native air,
In his own grounds

Alexander Pope

#83. So perish all who do the like again.

Alexander Pope

#84. At present we can only reason of the divine justice from what we know of justice in man. When we are in other scenes, we may have truer and nobler ideas of it; but while we are in this life, we can only speak from the volume that is laid open before us.

Alexander Pope

#85. Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?

Alexander Pope

#86. What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
That, more than Heaven pursue.

Alexander Pope

#87. One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Alexander Pope

#88. 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

#89. When to mischief mortals bend their will, how soon they find it instruments of ill.

Alexander Pope

#90. Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

Alexander Pope

#91. Inscriptions here of various Names I view'd,
The greater part by hostile time subdu'd;
Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And Poets once had promis'd they should last.

Alexander Pope

#92. The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

Alexander Pope

#93. Great wits are to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

John Dryden

#94. Fame can never make us lie down contentedly on a deathbed.

Alexander Pope

#95. True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Alexander Pope

#96. What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Alexander Pope

#97. Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Alexander Pope

#98. Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew:
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.

Alexander Pope

#99. Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

Alexander Pope

#100. See! From the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings;
Short is his joy! He feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Alexander Pope