Alexander Pope Quotes

The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

On wrongs swift vengeance waits.

The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

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

A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest.

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

Never was it given to mortal man - To lie so boldly as we women can.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Never find fault with the absent.

Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.

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

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.