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Alexander Pope

498 quotes

“Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell me, my soul, can this be death?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world recedes; it disappears! Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring! Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd, But as the world, harmoniously confus'd, Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, They fall, and leave their little lives in air.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From old Belerium to the northern main.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. While Cato gives his little senate laws, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1734 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Line 21; Pope also uses the reference, "Like Cato, give his little Senate laws", in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1734), Prologue to Imitations of Horace.
“Ignobly vain, and impotently great.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be Scholars, and yet be angry to find us so.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield. Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances and the public show.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot; A heap of dust alone remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1688–1744) first seen 1727 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727), Published in Swift's Miscellanies (1727)
Also quoted by: Jonathan Swift (misattributed)
“It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most positive men are the most credulous...”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1727 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Roscoe's edition of Pope, vol. v. p. 376; originally printed in Motte's Miscellanies (1727). In the edition of 1736 Pope says, "I must own that the prose part (the Thought on Various Subjects), at the end of the se…
“Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1734 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Epistle I, To Lord Cobham (1734), line 150
“Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou Great First Cause, least understood Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good And that myself am blind.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge Thy foe.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I am right, Thy grace import Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way!”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Teach me to feel another's woe, To right the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1596 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stanza 10; this extends upon the theme evident in the lines of Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1596), Book V, Canto ii, Stanza 42: "Who will not mercie unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have?
“I am growing fit, I hope, for a better world, of which light of the sun is but a shadow: for I doubt not but God's works here, are what comes nearest to his works there; and that a true relish of the beauties of nature is the most easy preparation and gentlest transition to an enjoyment of those of heaven; as on the contrary a true town life of hurry, confusion, noise, slander, and dissension, is a fort of apprenticeship to hell and its furies... The separation of my soul and body is what I could think of with less pain; for I sm very sure he that made it will take care of it, and in whatever state he pleases it shall be, that state must be right; but I cannot think without tears of beingseparated from my friends, when their condition is so douubtful, that they may want even such assistance as mine”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1715 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a 1715 letter (LXXVII), as found in Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope: And Several of His Friends. 1737
“The famous Lord Hallifax (though so much talked of) was rather a pretender to taste, than really possessed of it.—When I had finished the two or three first books of my translation of the Iliad, that lord, "desired to have the pleasure of hearing them read at his house." Addison, Congreve, and Garth, were there at the reading.—In four or five places, Lord Hallifax stopped me very civilly; and with a speech, each time of much the same kind: "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me.—Be so good as to mark the place, and consider it a little at your leisure.—I am sure you can give it a little turn."—I returned from Lord Hallifax's with Dr. Garth, in his chariot; and as we were going along, was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid me under a good deal of difficulty, by such loose and general observations; that I had been thinking over the passages almost ever since, and could not guess at what it was that offended his lordship in either of them.—Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with Lord Hallifax, to know his way yet: that I need not puzzle myself in looking those places over and over when I got home. "All you need do, (said he) is to leave them just as they are; call on Lord Hallifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observations on those passages; and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."—I followed his advice; waited on Lord Hallifax some time after: said, I hoped he would find his objections to those passages removed[;] read them to him exactly as they were at first; and his lordship was extremely pleased with them, and cried out, "Ay now, Mr. Pope, they are perfectly right! nothing can be better.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) first seen 1734 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark (1734?) 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…
“Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“'T is but a part we see, and not a whole.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source