Alexander Pope Quotes

English poet (1688–1744)

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Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) was a poet and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents. Considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century and a master of the heroic couplet, he is best known for satirical and discursive poetry.

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Alternative Names: Pope the Poet • Alexander I Pope • Alexander, I Pope

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How vast a memory has Love!

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;
And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain

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.

Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown; O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

There is no study that is not capable of delighting us, after a little application to it.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

No, fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;
Rise Alps between us! and whole oceans roll!
Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,
Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.
Thy oaths I quit, thy memory resign;
Forget, renounce me, hate whate'er was mine.
Fair eyes, and tempting looks (which yet I view!)
Long lov'd, ador'd ideas, all adieu!

"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.

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.

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss

Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring. Think what an equipage thou hast in Air, 45 And view with scorn two Pages and a Chair.

Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends.

Tis not enough, your counsel still be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;

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?

For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.