Alexander Pope Quotes

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

Of these am I, who thy protection claim, A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name.
Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air,
In the clear mirror of thy ruling star
I saw, alas! some dread event impend,
Ere to the main this morning sun descend,
But Heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where: Warn'd by the Sylph, oh pious maid, beware!

The proper study of mankind is man.

For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

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

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;

What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

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.

This is the Jew That Shakespeare drew.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

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?

Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

Better from evils, well foreseen, to run,
Than perish in the danger we may shun.

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.