Best quotes by Alexander Pope

Mankind is unamendable.

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.

Fool, 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam: Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Consult the Genius of the Place in all.

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

There is no study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it.

I as little fear that God will damn a man that has charity, as I hope that the priests can save one who has not.

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.

Most women have no characters at all.

For thee I dim these eye and stuff this head With all such reading as was never read.

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

Dogs, ye have had your day!

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

Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him.

With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactly what you did Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before And each mistake leads back to something worse.

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or lap-dogs breathe their last.

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

Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven.

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

Is not absence death to those who love?

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

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

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.

Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross?

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

On wrongs swift vengeance waits.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Curse on all laws but those which love has made.

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 flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

Drink is the feast of reason and the flow of soul.

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

True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit.

Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.

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

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.

And write about it, Goddess, and about it!

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Ah! why, ye Gods, should two and two make four?

Lo! the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way.

But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

Our plenteous streams a various race supply, The bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye, The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd, The yellow carp, in scales bedropp'd with gold, Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, And pikes, the tyrants of the wat'ry plains.

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

What Conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do; This teach me more than Hell to shun, That more than Heav'n pursue.

There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, ''Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.

Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, 'Tis for mine For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower.

Avoid Extremes; and shun the fault of such Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.

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

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment, too?

The world is a thing we must of necessity either laugh at or be angry at; if we laugh at it, they say we are proud; if we are angry at it, they say we are ill-natured.

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity.

It is very natural for a young friend and a young lover to think the persons they love have nothing to do but to please them.

No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her.

I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken.

The season when to come, and when to go, to sing, or cease to sing, we never know.

A naked lover bound and bleeding lies!

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

Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n.

Devotion's self shall steal a thought from heaven.

A mighty maze! But not without a plan.

A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake.