Alexander Pope Quotes

chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd.

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!

Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:

For the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance

Whatever is, is right.

Then most our trouble still when most admired,
And still the more we give, the more required;
Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,
Sure some to vex, but never all to please.

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.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

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.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart

Music resembles poetry, in each
Are nameless graces which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach.

Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away!

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.