Alexander Pope Quotes (535 Quotes)


    What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.

    See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
    All matter quick, and bursting into birth.

    Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
    Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

    I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
    Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

    Yet not to earth's contracted span
    Thy goodness let me bound,
    Or think thee Lord alone of man,
    When thousand worlds are round.


    Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is saved for beauties not his own.


    Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill; Appear in writing or in judging ill.

    Who combats bravely is not therefore brave He dreads a deathbed like the meanest slave.

    'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.


    It is with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.




    Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;
    Sad proof how well a lover can obey!

    To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake.

    Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
    And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.

    The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.



    Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming Mistress, but a barren bride.

    Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
    Whose flocks supply him with attire,
    Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
    In winter fire.


    Statesman, yet friend to truth of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

    Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
    When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?

    Be not the first by which a new thing is tried, or the last to lay the old aside.

    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.


    The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.

    Years following years steal something every day At last they steal us from ourselves away.

    Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
    Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
    In health of body, peace of mind,
    Quiet by day.

    Men, some to business, some to pleasure take But every woman is at heart a rake Men, some to quiet, some to public strife But every lady would be queen for life.

    Ask you what provocation I have had The strong antipathy of good to bad.

    Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
    Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

    From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

    See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense See Mystery to Mathematics fly.

    To what base Ends, and by what abject Ways,
    Are Mortals urg'd thro' Sacred Lust of praise!

    I was not born for courts and great affairs,but I pay my debts, believe and say my prayers.

    Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
    Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?


    Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.

    The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

    See how the world its veterans rewards A youth of frolics, an old age of cards.

    Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
    How often must it love, how often hate!

    Or her, that owns her Faults, but never mends,
    Because she's honest, and the best of Friends.

    Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.

    To balance Fortune by a just expense, Join with Economy, Magnificence.

    Nay, fly to altars there theyll talk you dead For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

    Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.


    Related Authors


    Robert Frost - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Maya Angelou - e. e. cummings - Thomas Gray - Sylvia Plath - Max Jacob - Lucretius - Elizabeth Bishop - Edgar Guest


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