Alexander Pope Quotes

All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

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

Ignobly vain, and impotently great.

"Let Sporus tremble — "What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?"
Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,
This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys,
Yet Wit ne'er tastes, and Beauty ne'er enjoys,"

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile

Your silence there is better than your spite,
For who can rail so long as they can write?

To err is human, to forgive divine.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

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.

So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown.
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal,
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

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.

Çdo krijesë që thahet, ushqim bëhet për të tjerë,
Jeta dhuron frymën, që vdekja e merr
Si shkumë deti prej materies sajuar,
Lindin, copëtohen e kthehen në valë, me detin për tu përqafuar.

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.