Alexander Pope Quotes

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains:
That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,
Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face!

The fool is happy that he knows no more

For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

"We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives them to."

[Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727]

What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
That, more than Heaven pursue.

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,
Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,
Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.

Thy voice I seem in ev'ry hymn to hear, with ev'ry bead I drop too soft a tear...

"Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit — In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "Whatever IS, is RIGHT.

Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew:
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.

To err is human; to forgive, divine

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