Best quotes by Alexander Pope

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

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.

In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?

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.

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

A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.

Whoe'er he be That tells my faults, I hate him mortally.

To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.

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

"With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart.

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

A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal, is more than armies to the public weal.

Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.

A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury, for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.

Where's the man who counsel can bestow, still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know.

Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

Old men, for the most part, are like old chronicles that give you dull but true accounts of times past, and are worth knowing only on that score.

Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

In death a hero, as in life a friend!

Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

When much dispute has past, we find our tenets just the same as last.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great... He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born to die, and reasoning but to err.

At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense.

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

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight; Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.

Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserv'd my sheep.

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?

Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize, And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.

In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

True friendship's laws are by this rule express'd, Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Atheists put on false courage and alacrity in the midst of their darkness and apprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go in the dark, will sing for fear.

The scripture in times of disputes is like an open town in times of war, which serves in differently the occasions of both parties.

Coffee which makes the politician wise, and see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

Be silent always when you doubt your sense.

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.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all .

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own.

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

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

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

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.

There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship.

In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fixed, 'tis fixed as in a frost.

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.

How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?

It is not so much the being exempt from faults, as having overcome them, that is an advantage to us.

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.

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!

Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.

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.

Here thou, great Anna! Whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.

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.

Astrologers that future fates foreshow.

At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.

Order is heaven's first law.

Genius creates, and taste preserves.

Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,- The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care, The fur that warms a monarch warmed a bear.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.

Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?