|
There never was any party, faction, sect, or cabal, whatsoever, in which the most ignorant were not the most violent: for a bee is not a busier animal than a blockhead. However, such instruments are necessary to politicians; and perhaps it may be with states as with clocks, which must have some dead weight hanging at them, to help and regulate the motion of the finer and more useful parts.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Order is Heaven’s first law.
ALEXANDER POPE, Essay on Man
A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough: a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Married people, for being so closely united, are but the apter to part; as knots the harder they are pulled, break the sooner.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
- Heaven breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
- One common blessing, as one common soul.
ALEXANDER POPE, Essay on Man
- True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
- As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Criticism
It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty, as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person; they make friendships as kings of old made leagues, who sacrificed some poor animal betwixt them, and commenced strict allies; so the ladies, after they have pulled some character to pieces, are from henceforth inviolable friends.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
ALEXANDER POPE, Essay on Man
Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or (in the midwives' phrase) a quick conception, and an easy delivery.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Modesty, if it were to be recommended for nothing else, this were enough, that the pretending to little leaves a man at ease; whereas boasting requires a perpetual labour to appear what he is not.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unskilful, the most mischievous.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
It is as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
We may see the small value God has for riches by the people he gives them to.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Thou too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods;
Where towering oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear.
Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine, which visits Windsor's famed abodes,
To grace the mansion of our earthly gods:
Nor all his stars above a lustre show,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Windsor Forest"
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them a while, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new all they got by the old ones.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
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 allay, and feel the loss.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
ALEXANDER POPE, "An Essay on Criticism"
Atheists put on a 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.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Thoughts on Various Subjects", Miscellanies in Verse and Prose
- Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore;
- So much the better, you may laugh the more.
ALEXANDER POPE, Epilogue to the Satires
Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man
No turbots dignify my boards;
But gudgeons, flounders--what my Thames affords.
ALEXANDER POPE, "The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace"
And not a vanity is given in vain.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man
The heart resolves this matter in a trice:
Men only feel the smart, but not the vice.
ALEXANDER POPE, Imitations of Horace
Soft yielding Minds to Water glide away,
And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea.
ALEXANDER POPE, The Rape of the Lock
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
ALEXANDER POPE, Moral Essays
From his oozy bed
Old father Thames advanced his reverend head;
His tresses dropp'd with dews, and o'er the stream
His shining horns diffused a golden gleam:
Graved on his urn appear'd the moon, that guides
His swelling waters, and alternate tides;
The figured streams in waves of silver roll'd,
And on their banks Augusta rose in gold.
ALEXANDER POPE, "Windsor Forest"
Grove nods at grove.
ALEXANDER POPE, Moral Essays
Therefore I say once more, cast your eyes upon paper, and ready only such letters as I write, which convey no darts, no flames, but proceed from innocence of soul, and simplicity of heart.
ALEXANDER POPE, letter to Mrs. ***, The Works of Alexander Pope
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain.
The wond'ring forests soon should dance again;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
And headlong streams hang listening in their fall!
ALEXANDER POPE, Summer
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
ALEXANDER POPE, Prologue to Satires
All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Criticism
Never elated while one man's oppress'd;
Never dejected while another's blessed.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
ALEXANDER POPE, "Epistle V: To Mr. Addison", Moral Essays
To what base ends, and by what abject ways,
Are mortals urg'd through sacred lust of praise!
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Criticism
How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?
ALEXANDER POPE, Epilogue to the Satires
Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he were a rich man.
ALEXANDER POPE, Thoughts on Various Subjects
But honest instinct comes a volunteer;
Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit,
While still too wide or short in human wit.
ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man
The dances ended, all the fairy train
For pinks and daisies search'd the flow'ry plain.
ALEXANDER POPE, January and May
The man that loves and laughs must sure do well.
ALEXANDER POPE, Imitations of Horace
|
