True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
— Alexander Pope
Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.
— Alexander Pope
Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
— Alexander Pope
What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.
— Alexander Pope
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
— Alexander Pope
What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
— Alexander Pope
Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.
— Alexander Pope
When much dispute has past, we find our tenets just the same at last.
— Alexander Pope
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state.
— Alexander Pope
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.
— Alexander Pope
Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
— Alexander Pope
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.
— Alexander Pope
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
— Alexander Pope
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot A heap of dust alone remains of thee 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
— Alexander Pope
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
— Alexander Pope
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.
— Alexander Pope
Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
— Alexander Pope
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!
— Alexander Pope
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
— Alexander Pope
Party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
— Alexander Pope
Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source.
— Alexander Pope
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
— Alexander Pope
For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.
— Alexander Pope
Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.
— Alexander Pope
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
— Alexander Pope
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!
— Alexander Pope
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man.
— 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.
— Alexander Pope
It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
— Alexander Pope
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.
— Alexander Pope
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!
— Alexander Pope
Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason: man is not a fly.
— Alexander Pope
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.
— Alexander Pope
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!
— Alexander Pope
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each Seene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.
— Alexander Pope
Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
— Alexander Pope
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.
— Alexander Pope
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.
— Alexander Pope
Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.
— Alexander Pope
A person who is too nice as an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
— Alexander Pope
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
— Alexander Pope
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air.
— Alexander Pope
False happiness is like false money; it passes for a time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss.
— Alexander Pope
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
— Alexander Pope
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, More a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
— Alexander Pope
Some praise at morning what they blame at night, But always think the last opinion right.
— Alexander Pope
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we condemn in others, is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.
— Alexander Pope
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
— Alexander Pope
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
— Alexander Pope
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.
— Alexander Pope
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
— Alexander Pope
Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.
— Alexander Pope
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight, Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
— Alexander Pope
I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural.
— Alexander Pope
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.
— Alexander Pope
Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
— Alexander Pope
Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
— Alexander Pope
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream;
— Alexander Pope
Let such teach others who themselves excel And censure freely who have written well.
— Alexander Pope
Fire in each eye and papers in each hand, they rave, recite, and madden round the land.
— Alexander Pope
O happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.
— Alexander Pope
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned!
— Alexander Pope
T'is education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
— Alexander Pope
One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
— Alexander Pope
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
But where's the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?
— Alexander Pope
Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!
— Alexander Pope
Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
— Alexander Pope
Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.
— Alexander Pope
True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
— Alexander Pope
The fate of all extremes is such Men may be read, as well as books, too much. To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
— Alexander Pope
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.
— Alexander Pope
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.
— 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.
— Alexander Pope
Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
— Alexander Pope
You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.
— Alexander Pope
Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.
— Alexander Pope
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
— Alexander Pope
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.
— Alexander Pope
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.
— Alexander Pope
Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.
— Alexander Pope