Quotes by Alexander Pope

• Order is heaven's first law.
• Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.
• True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.
• True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance.
• To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
• To err is human; to forgive, divine.
• Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.
• Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
• Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
• Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.
• Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.
• Passions are the gales of life.
• So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
• Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.
• Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
• One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
• On wrongs swift vengeance waits.
• On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
• Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.
• Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.
• Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
• 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.
• Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.
• To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
• Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.
• Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
• The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.
• There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
• The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.
• The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
• 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.
• The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
• The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
• The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
• The proper study of Mankind is Man.
• The most positive men are the most credulous.
• The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.
• The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
• Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.
• The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.
• What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
• Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.
• Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.
• Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.
• Nature and nature's laws lay hid in the night. God said, Let Newton be! and all was light!
• Those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
• Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
• Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
• 'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
• Woman's at best a contradiction still.
• Wit is the lowest form of humor.
• Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
• They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
• The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.
• And die of nothing but a rage to live.
• A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.
• Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.
• Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
• Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
• Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
• But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
• And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.
• Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
• And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.
• An honest man's the noblest work of God.
• Never find fault with the absent.
• All nature is but art unknown to thee.
• Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
• Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
• At ev'ry word a reputation dies.
• Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
• Health consists with temperance alone.
• Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.
• Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.
• Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.
• But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?
• For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
• All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
• For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
• Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
• Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
• Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.
• Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.
• Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
• Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
• 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!
• I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
• If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
• In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
• Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
• A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
• Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.
• Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
• Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.
• How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?
• Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
• Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.
• 'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
• How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
• Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
• How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
• Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
• Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.
• A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.
• A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
• A person who is too nice 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.
• Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.
• Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!