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Alexander Pope
498 quotes
“Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1700 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ode on Solitude" (c. 1700), st. 1
“Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1700 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ode on Solitude" (c. 1700), st. 5
“'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion move.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1703 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The First Book of Statius his Thebais (c. 1703; first pubd. 1712), lines 413–414
“A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1709 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Essay on Criticism" (1709)
“They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1704 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c. 1704, published 1713), line 103
“The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1704 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c. 1704, published 1713), lines 298-299. Compare: "I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to", Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The W…
“Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1704 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c. 1704, published 1713), line 369
“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1709 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Henry Cromwell (19 October 1709)
“I am his Highness' Dog at Kew; Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are you?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1738 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epigram. Engraved on the Collar of a Dog, which I gave to His Royal Highness" (1738)
“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How vast a memory has Love!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1712 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sappho to Phaon", line 52 (1712)
“Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring victims, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there. It gives one the image of a giant's den in a romance, bestrewed with scattered heads and mangled limbs.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1713 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spence's Anecdotes and The Guardian (21 May 1713); as quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), p. 132
“I find myself just in the same situation of mind you describe as your own, heartily wishing the good, that is the quiet of my country, and 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.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1714 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edward Blount (27 August 1714); a similar expression in "Thoughts on Various Subjects" in Swift's Miscellanies (1727): Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
“The stoic husband was the glorious thing. The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true, And lov'd his country.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1714 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epilogue to Rowe's Jane Shore (1714)
“Well, if our author in the wife offends He has a husband that will make amends; He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving, And sure such kind good creatures may be living.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1714 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epilogue to Rowe's Jane Shore (1714)
“Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1715 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Farewell to London" (1715), st. 1
“Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1715 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Farewell to London" (1715), st. 12
“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1734 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Essay on Man (1734)
“I think it was a generous thought, and one that fow'd from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1715 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter, February 10, 1715, 16
“Each finding like a friend Something to blame, and something to commend.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1717 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epistle to Mr. Jervas" (1717), lines 21–22
“Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1720 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epitaph on the Hon. S. Harcourt" (1720)
“Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the ver sin itself: the thrist of gain was their crime, that thrist continued became their punishment and ruin. As for the few who have the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had (among whom is your humble servantl, I would have them sensible of their felicity, and convinced of the truth of old Hesiod's maxim, who, after half his estate was swallowed by the Directors of those days, resolv'd, that half to be more than the whole.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1720 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In his letter to Atterbury Bishop of Rochester. Sept. 23. 1720
“Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung, Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1721 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" preface to Thomas Parnell's Poems on Several Occasions (1721)
“Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1721 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" (1721)
“Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" was the ninth Beatitude which a man of wit (who, like a man of wit, was a long time in gaol) added to the eighth.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1725 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter, written in collaboration with John Gay, to William Fortescue (23 September 1725).
“Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long Absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: Absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1725 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter, written in collaboration with Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, to Jonathan Swift (14 December 1725)
“Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1727 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Umbra", first published in Miscellanies (1727)
“So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; Heav'n, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1730 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet" (1730)
“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.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1732 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter, written in collaboration with Dr John Arbuthnot, to Jonathan Swift (December 5, 1732) upon the death of John Gay.
“Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit, a Man; Simplicity, a Child.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1733 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epitaph on Gay" (1733), lines 1-2. Reported in The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 818. Compare: "Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child", John Dryden, E…
“For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1737 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Imitation of Martial, reported in Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence (1737), Vol. V, p. 232; The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 117. Compare: "Ampliat ætatis spat…
“I have nothing to say for rhyme, but that I doubt whether a poem can support itself without it, in our language; unless it be stiffened with such strange words, as are likely to destroy our language itself.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1737 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark (1738?) quoted in Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [published from the original papers; with notes, and a life of the author, by Samuel Weller Singer]; "Spence's A…
“What terrible moments does one feel after one has engaged for a large work! In the beginning of my translating the Iliad, I wished any body would hang me a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my mind at first, that I often used to dream of it; and do so sometimes still. When I fell into the method of translating 30 or 40 verses before I got up, and piddled with it the rest of the morning, it went on easily enough; and when I was thoroughly got into the way of it, I did the rest with pleasure.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1739 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark (1739?) quoted in Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [arranged, with notes, by the late Edmund Malone], pp. 28–29
“There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell: We thrive at Westminster on fools like you; 'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1740 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt, sixth edition (Yale University Press, 1970), p. 832: "Verbatim from Boileau", written c. 1740, published 1741.. Compare: "Tenez voilà", dit-elle, "à chacun une éca…
Also quoted by: Nicholas Boileau-despreaux
“Let such, such only tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1740 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inscription on the entrance to his grotto in Twickenham, published in "Verses on a Grotto by the River Thames at Twickenham, composed of Marbles, Spars and Minerals", line 14, (written 1740, published 1741); also quoted…
“The Iliad took me up six years, and during that time, and particularly the first part of it, I was often under great pain and apprehensions. Though I conquered the thoughts of it in the day, they would frighten me in the night. I dreamed often of being engaged in a long journey, and that I should never get to the end of it. This made so strong an impression upon me, that I sometimes dream of it still; of being engaged in that translation, of having got about half way through it, and being embarrassed, and under dread of never completing it.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1743 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark (1743?) quoted in Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence [arranged, with notes, by the late Edmund Malone], pp. 53–54
“Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died. In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled! They had no poet, and are dead.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Odes, Book iv, Ode 9, reported in William Warburton, The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq (1751) p. 31
“Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry, Chap. xi, reported in William Warburton, The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq (1751) p. 196
“Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1744 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pope's reply when told by his physician that he was better, on the morning of his death (30 May 1744), as quoted by Owen Ruffhead in The Life of Alexander Pope; With a Critical Essay on His Writings and Genius (1769), p…
“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 flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Say, is not absence death to those who love?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: English proverb (english)
“There various news I heard of love and strife, Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life, Of loss and gain, of famine and of store, Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore, Of prodigies, and portents seen in air, Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair, Of turns of fortune, changes in the state, The fall of favourites, projects of the great, Of aid mismanagements, taxations new: All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it, added something new, And all who heard it, made Enlargements too, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown; O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source